Jeeves and the Incalculable Mistake
by 96 Hubbles
Summary: Jeeves tells a different story about what happened after the infamous bicycle ride.
1. Chapter 1

**Jeeves and the Incalculable Mistake**

For those of us in service, there has, and I suspect always will be, dissension on one topic of particular importance: the wisdom of encouraging or discouraging one's employer to grow attached to you. One camp maintains that the vast number of employers are more comfortable with a natural distance; the less your presence is felt, the less constrained and more at ease your employer feels, and therefore they are more likely to retain those servants that are easily ignored. This camp also maintains that this method of behaviour saves them not only from the wilder caprices of the more emotional sort of master, but also from many hours of tedious listening.

The second camp, on the other hand and in a definite minority, feels that an employer who can unburden himself fully is less likely to dismiss you because this particular freedom not only binds you to him - emotionally, and, in some cases in a conspiratorial sense - making him dependent, but it also provides the alert and sympathetic servant with that knowledge which makes his master's behaviour easier to predict. (And, if nothing, else, it occasionally supplies the gentleman's gentleman in question some… leverage.)

I myself, however, have always been of the opinion that the correct answer depends very much on the individual employer in question. For instance, with certain of my previous employers, the less I knew of their activities, the less subject I was to criminal investigation.

But, upon entering Mr. Wooster's service, I was delighted to find a man very much of the second sort. I had not thought I possessed a preference until I found how rewarding it was to be _seen _by one's master - to not only be acknowledged as being in the room, but consulted and asked for one's advice, as if one's opinion was as worthy as any other's. It was something I had never expected, yet once found, it was like water to a man in the desert.

Yet, unlike water to the aforementioned individual, I did not appreciate it, or indeed even realize that I possessed it. If I had asked myself before this began what I felt towards Mr. Wooster, I would have believed my feelings were nothing more than the same general appreciation any servant would feel for a master who provides him with a comfortable situation. If pressed, I might have admitted to a certain level of vague fondness as well, but certainly nothing more. If my performance in my duties belied this impression, that was the observer's mistake; I believe in upholding standards, not slavishly serving out of devotion. Standards determine a man; devotion implies subjugation, even dependence.

And this has been my mistake.

This account is in the nature of a confession. I had first thought to put down this report in the Junior Ganymede Club book, but after many attempts to begin, I realized that it simply would not do. Sitting in front of the book itself, pen in hand, I had told myself my reasons were that it could possibly give rise to certain implications, which, no matter how erroneous, could cause difficulties not only for myself, but for Mr. Wooster. But that was cowardly, and I finally realized this account will serve no purpose if it is not honest.

No, it is the idea of exposing the shame I feel over my recent behaviour that keeps me from placing this in the Junior Ganymede book. The simple fact of the matter is that, for the first time, my master has written a memoir that is less than fully candid - or at least one that is not complete. That he does so on my behalf, pains me to no little degree. I can no longer stand for him to describe my actions in glowing terms, not without admitting to the truth, if nowhere else than in my own heart.

My master, Mr. Bertram Wilberforce Wooster, has a sunny disposition and a kindly and forgiving nature. He is an exceedingly generous employer, both in remunerative terms and in granting privileges. He is easy to care for, yet life with him is never boring. He is amenable to nearly any suggestion on my part and surprisingly considerate of my time as a matter of course. He is never harsh, never takes liberties and is extremely unusual in that not only is he not afraid to show genuine gratitude, he also makes a point of being constantly complimentary of my work.

In return, I have manipulated him often and without real thought, usually for my own comfort or amusement. I have risked his reputation and allowed - even abetted - his good name being denigrated in public. I have slandered his intelligence on more than one occasion. I have manoeuvred him into awkward and sometimes dangerous positions and, to 'make it up to him', I have fought him over or denied him the smallest pleasures in matters of wardrobe, even to the extent of destroying his personal property. I have done my utmost to make him dependent on me, and then used threats of leaving in order to have things as I wished. I have endeavoured to keep him from the comforts of marriage, and, most heinously perhaps, I have kept him from developing further relations with the only living members of his immediate family - his sister and his nieces, who will likely be the people he will have to depend on to care for him in his old age.

Feudal spirit indeed.

I can offer no excuse for my behaviour, even to myself. The only explanation I have been able to find is that a servant's life is a very insecure one, and the ability to control events is perhaps a reassuring one. However, this meagre justification is a hollow one. I now realize - with a painful amount of chagrin - that for nearly the entirety of my service in Mr. Wooster's employ, I have acted in ways that I always regarded as being against everything I stood for. Strangely though, as prideful as I am, even this disturbs me less than the idea of _who_ it is I have hurt.

For it is a sad fact of life that one only seems to realize the importance of a particular relationship just when the state of that relationship has been rendered the most precarious. In this particular case, it was only brought home to me how much I respected and admired, and even felt affection for, Mr. Wooster at that exact time when I had unthinkingly put my position with him at the greatest risk.

But more than that, it was only when it had nearly cost me everything I hold dear - my position, my reputation, my own good opinion of myself and, far, far more importantly, the life of my master - did I feel the sickening fear of what I might lose.


	2. Chapter 2

_I forgot the disclaimer on the first chapter, so here it is: I am not P. G. Wodehouse, but I am shamelessly stealing his characters for my own amusement. However, this story should not be taken in any way as a reflection on his superior work. _

_**Chapter 2**_

Having served Mr. Wooster for some years by that point, and believing I was more attuned to his moods than he was himself, I arose the next morning in a rather cheerfully complacent state of mind. True, I had been thrown slightly off-step by missing Mr. Wooster's arrival back at Brinkley Court the night before, but I was confident that, after a restful sleep (and I had never known Mr. Wooster to have anything but) and a large breakfast served to him in bed, his potential pique at the previous night's occurrences would have already dissipated to a great degree. Then, once informed that he was no longer engaged to Miss Bassett, and that all of the problems of his friends and relations had been solved, the mixture of relief and pleasure would naturally dispense with any lingering resentment on his part.

Under normal circumstances, by which I mean when Mr. Wooster and I are at home, I usually manage to time my entrance with his morning tea just as he awakes. However, as breakfast in most country houses is generally served as a buffet, and at an earlier hour than Mr. Wooster is accustomed to, it meant that to secure a full plate and to be sure it was hot, I had to convince Monsieur Anatole to let me prepare a tray before the meal was laid out for the others. Which, in turn, meant that when I let myself into Mr. Wooster's bedchamber, I was not surprised to find that he didn't stir at my entrance.

For a moment I paused. I have never considered myself a man given to fancies, but there was some aura around him which made me frown. The way the light fell on him (for the drapes had not been properly closed), an unusual tension across his form - what it was I could not say, but looking at him curled on his side in that large bed, his back to me, I could not but help feel that there was almost a desolate quality to the picture before me. He looked so.. _so alone in the world_. Unthinkingly, I almost raised my hand out to touch him, just to dispel this sudden, inexplicable air of isolation.

Dismayed at my foolishness, I drew back sharply and shook my head to rid myself at such a ridiculous notion. I then put down the tray and proceeded to the window to draw the drapes. Upon turning back, I was quite startled to see Mr. Wooster staring at me.

Flustered momentarily, though I trust it did not show, I quickly regained my composure. "Good morning, sir. Would you care for some breakfast?"

He blinked and there was a pause as if he seemed to need some moments to understand what I was saying. "Jeeves?"

"Yes, sir. I thought perhaps you would care for breakfast in bed, sir, and have brought a tray up for you."

"I'm not hungry."

There was something oddly flat about the way he said this. It was not his usual buoyant tone, but neither was it the petulance I was half expecting. However, smug fool that I was in believing everything would go as I envisioned, I did not pursue it. Instead, bent over his tray, I prepared his tea and said the words I would give any amount of money to take back now: "Indeed, sir? Most find that strenuous physical activity is a stimulant to the appetite." It was malicious and petty, and when I straightened to pass him the cup and saucer, I beheld one of the most stricken looks I had ever seen on the face of anyone.

I retreated, nonplussed at the sight. "Sir, I…"

His gaping mouth snapped shut and his jaw tightened. "Please go run my bath, Jeeves," he ordered coldly.

I tried again. "Sir, I - "

"The _bath_, Jeeves."

He did not take the cup of tea from my hand. I had to put it down on the bureau while feeling his glare upon my back, and then I left the room.

-x-

The next indication I had that things were not to go as easily as I had foreseen, was that Mr. Wooster dismissed me from the salle de bain after the water was drawn. That is not to say that it was my usual task to wait upon Mr. Wooster like some medieval courtier while he bathed, but I did customarily help him disrobe and then performed some duty or other close by in order to be on hand should he require anything.

However, this morning he sent me back to his bedchamber to lay out a suit of clothes - suitable for running errands in the village, he specified - and then to go and ask the Travers' chauffer to bring the two-seater around.

"Very good, sir," I said, my tone a bit cold itself by this time. "Does sir wish me to accompany him on his errands?"

"No." Not, _'No, that's quite all right, old thing,' _or _'No need, Jeeves, I can manage." _Just a brusque _no_.

"Very good, sir."

A man will get nowhere in service if he is not observant, nor will he advance if he does not learn to control his emotions. That morning I failed to do either. Upon my return to his room, I did spot that Mr. Wooster had not touched his breakfast, but not consciously enough to ponder the reason. I was too busy attempting to master a rare simmering of resentment in my breast. That it should be there at all, caused me even more confusion and bitterness. Any servant who will take umbrage over every little of his master's shifts in moods will not last long, whether he can school his expression in constant placidity or not. It took several minutes before I could sufficiently dampen this strange sensation enough to choose an appropriate ensemble for Mr. Wooster, instead of purposely sending him out in his heliotrope pyjamas, golf shoes and evening jacket.

After this had been accomplished, and after having spoken with the chauffeur, I returned to the bedroom to assist Mr. Wooster and found to my great surprise that not only was he out of the bath, but that the door to his chamber was locked.

"Sir? The door is locked," I informed him. Rather redundantly, I suppose, as he must have been the one to have locked it.

"Is it? I must have done it by accident when I came in," he said, speaking through the door.

Why did I feel he was lying to me?

"If you would open the door, sir, I can assist you with your dress."

"That won't be necessary, Jeeves. I'm almost finished."

"Are you sure you do not wish my help, sir?"

"For God's sake, man, you may think I need you to choose my clothes for me, but surely I can put the blasted things on all by myself! Now go away!"

It was the first time he had ever truly spoken at me in anger.

I glared through the closed door. "Very good, sir."

-x-

After Mr. Wooster departed to perform his mysterious errands in the village, I decided to clean and press his soiled evening wear from the night before. *

But it was bound to be a day of perplexing and irritating surprises. I could not find the clothes anywhere. I was at first happy to see that Mr. Wooster had not rolled them into a ball and bundled them, still wet, into the wardrobe, but as I searched further and didn't find them strewn on the floor, draped over a chair or deposited in a corner behind the bed, I grew more and more frustrated as they failed to turn up. What in the world could he have done with them?

Finally, I made my way downstairs to inquire of Mrs. Dodd, the house-keeper.

"I believe Mr. Seppings had Frederick see to them last night," she replied in the midst of directing the staff in preparing for some outing Miss Angela had planned, "No, no, Sally, they're in the second cupboard."

"Last night?" I asked. "I was unaware anyone had seen Mr. Wooster return last night."

"Oh, yes. Mr. Seppings and Frederick helped him to bed after spotting him sitting in the garden… No, Jane, not the fancy silver," she admonished one of the newer parlour-maids. "It's only a picnic for heaven's sake. But mind, be sure to give it a good shine nonetheless. "

"Sitting in the garden? In the rain? And why did no one inform me when Mr. Wooster returned? I spoke to Frederick specifically and asked him if he had seen Mr. Wooster."

Upon occasion Mr. Wooster has complained that I often say one thing, while my tone conveys something else. I now found myself on the other end of such a circumstance when Mrs. Dodd finally deigned to look at me. "I'm sure I don't know," was all she said, but she was most definitely not smiling.

-x-

"I hope Mr. Bertie sacks him."

I halted just outside the laundry room, shocked.

"Really?" Frederick asked. "I mean he's a bit of a toffee-nose, but - "

"I'm sick of how he gets away with bloody murder!" I barely recognized the ugly tones as coming from Edward, a young footman whom I had always approved of for his quiet ways. "It's not fair, is it? I got dismissed from my last place - and with no references neither, mind - just for buying the wrong bleeding tea, but this one makes a blasted fool of his master by sending him out on some fool prank, _in the rain yet_, and just you see if Mr. Bertie even says a word to 'im!"

"Them upstairs think pretty highly of him too," Frederick added sadly.

"Too right they do. The mistress is always wanting to know what _Jeeves _thinks. It's sickening the way he's ingratiated himself into the family. And you just know he's angling to get the under-butler's job here."

"And leave Mr. Bertie? That's nonsense."

"What loyalty's he got for Mr. Bertie?" Edward sneered. "I mean, look at them clothes! That shirt's not worth saving what with that big tear. And you'll be at those trousers all day trying to get them grass stains out."

"What's that to do with the price of tea in China?" Frederick asked.

"I'll tell you what - Mr. Bertie must've had a fall, _that's what_. And anyone who can send his master out on a bicycle to Kingham Manor and back, on a night like last night, and not see how bleeding dangerous it was, ain't as concerned with his master's well-being as he's fooled everyone into thinking."

"Well, I'll buy the bit about Mr. Bertie having a fall. Look at this collar here, is this blood?"

I flinched. _Blood?_

"I tell you, that's what happened - Mr. Bertie must've had a spill on that bicycle!"

Frederick apparently considered this for a few moments. "It might explain why he seemed so dazed when Mr. Seppings brought him in last night. Still, it couldn't have been too serious. He's all right this morning."

"Maybe, maybe not," Edward said smugly, obviously knowing something Frederick did not, but just then Mr. Seppings' voice sounded down the corridor, calling for Frederick. I felt there was no need to alert them to my presence and stepped into another room. I was unheard in the mad rush of chairs scraping as the two young men hurried to their feet (likely to put out cigarettes, I transgression Mr. Seppings was vigilant about while on duty) and dashed around in an effort to appear busy.

"Frederick?"

"Yes, Mr. Seppings?"

"Did Mr. Jeeves find you?"

"No, sir. Was he looking for me?"

"He was looking for Mr. Wooster's clothes. Are they done yet?"

"I'm afraid there's no saving the shirt, sir. And I'm having the devil's own time with these stains on the trousers."

I sensed Mr. Seppings' weary look of reprimand, even through the door. "Language, boy! Do at least try to sound respectable and not resort to common expressions. As for the stains, check with Mrs. Dodd. She may have some solution that will help."

"I will, sir."

"Well, go on boy," Mr. Seppings ordered. "No time like the present."

"No, sir. I mean, yes, sir. Only, can I ask a question, sir?"

"I believe you just did," Mr. Seppings answered, somewhat exasperated.

"Well, sir, I only wanted to know… well, is Mr. Bertie - I mean Mr. Wooster! - Is he all right this morning?"

"You saw him last night, Frederick. Didn't he look all right to you?"

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."

I heard Mr. Seppings walk away, but instead of Frederick following to inquire about a cleaning solution, he asked Edward what he had been about to say before.

"Well, as I was saying, Mr. Bertie may look all right, but Arthur told me that the bicycle wasn't put back in the gardener's shed last night."

"Really?"

"And that's not all. When Arthur asked the old man about it this morning, Mr. Seppings said that Mr. Bertie had said to offer the gardener his apologies and to tell him that he - Mr. Bertie, that is - promised to pay for a new one."

"So what does it all mean?" Frederick asked.

"I don't know, but it's pretty blooming clear that whatever happened last night was enough to nobble that bicycle."

Some time later, after the two young men had left to see to other duties, I emerged from my hiding place (it was vain to pretend it was anything else), still pondering the mystery of the missing bicycle.

* * *

_* Except for borrowing the rain, this story is based entirely on the book. (Not that I don't love the tv show, but that's just how it turned out.) In the book, knowing he has to stay up and pull the fire bell, Bertie is still dressed when everyone is locked out of the house. _

_Pity though, I kind of like the idea of him in his pyjamas and dressing gown… _


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter 3**_

Mr. Wooster was out the entire morning, not returning until well after lunch. The general consensus of the various Travers family members and their guests was that he was too embarrassed to face the party after his ill-thought-out prank "went pear-shaped" (to use a term of young Mr. Glossop's) and was skulking in the nearest hostelry to drown his mortification. This picture created much amusement at the family breakfast table, and was even the cause of some slight witticisms being made at Mr. Wooster's expense when they discovered he had still not returned in time to accompany the group on Miss Angela's picnic.

I, too, suspected as much in regards to Mr. Wooster's probable location, and so found no reason to ask myself what possible 'errands' he might have in Market Snodsbury until much later. In fact, the only question that did cross my mind - apart from the mystery of the bicycle - was why Mr. Wooster had not decided to return to London, as it was his general habit to retreat when situations grew too onerous. There was no longer anything here that required our attention in any case.

However, it was the question of what happened to the bicycle occupied most of my time as I busied myself with small chores. That it was missing was not so perplexing: quite probably Mr. Wooster _had _taken a fall - a circumstance which would explain not only the speckling of blood on his collar (a small amount, I assumed, since Frederick was unsure as to what the stains indeed were), but also his somewhat cross demeanour this morning. However, though Mr. Wooster had undoubtedly been unnerved by the experience, the evidence suggested the incident had been minor enough, with the only the bicycle suffering any true damage. It was possible that even that had not been great, perhaps a thrown chain or a bent wheel, but was exaggerated in the mind of Mr. Wooster, who had never been required to fix things himself. In any case, his generous heart, appalled at the thought of destroying another's property, would wish him to replace the object, more than likely with something unsuitably fancy.

No, that part of the bicycle problem was easy enough to solve. The question facing me at that point was exactly how put upon Mr. Wooster was now feeling, and how this would affect my position in the argument. Clearly the matter had become more delicate, suggesting it might behove me to take a more humble and gentle approach, but it was also important not to let him think I had done something wrong. He cared greatly for his family and friends, therefore, once he could see my actions had simply been the most expedient way to bring together his loved ones, I felt certain he would feel much better about the slight trick I had been forced to play on him and we would both be more content. I spent a considerable time pondering how to broach the subject while I rearranged Mr. Wooster's wardrobe and finally determined that I would simply explain my reasoning fully and trust that he would see the necessity of some small sacrifice on his part for the greater good.

-x-

It was the sight of Iris, one of the Travers' scullery maids, scrubbing the floor - or I should say, _not _scrubbing the floor, as her hand was still and her eyes closed with pleasure - at the bottom of the stairwell, that alerted me to my master having returned. The child had a passionate love of music and almost always contrived to find some work just outside the music room while Mr. Wooster was at the piano. I could hardly blame her; other than Miss Angela's and young Master Duncan's rather painful past forays into a musical education, no one ever used the room apart from my master when he visited. (1)

Distracted by the sight of the rapt Iris, however, it took me a second to notice _what _Mr. Wooster was playing. I frowned when I realized it was Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. He usually only played classical music when he was troubled, telling me once that the softer sounds were soothing and the extra concentration needed allowed him to take his mind off whatever was bothering him.

"Oh!"

I gazed down the stairwell. The piece had finished and Iris had finally looked up and spotted me. To my surprise, she glared at me and then stuck her nose in the air and made a great show of not rushing back to her task.

I bit back a sharp retort for her to be about her work. What was wrong with me? I had never felt any need to snap at one of the Brinkley servants before.

Instead, I tried to smile warmly at the girl. "That's quite all right, Iris," I said, as if she had been flustered and anxious of my spotting her dereliction of duty after all. "There are not many who possess a true appreciation of fine music and you need hardly be defensive. We are luckier than most in our position to be able to listen to a talented player like Mr. Wooster."

"Yes, sir," she answered haughtily. "In fact, there's them what never appreciate all sorts of things, from what I hear."

I stiffened. "And what exactly do you mean by that, Iris?"

"Why, nothing, I'm sure, _Mister _Jeeves," she went on, innocently. "Only there's some what don't know just how lucky they've got it. Don't you agree?"

"I do, Iris. It can be so easy for anyone to overstep their bounds by speaking out of turn to a superior. _Even _for such a wise girl as yourself."

"Hmpf," was all she said, and she went back to her scrubbing as the sounds of Beethoven's "Pathetique" began to float from the room beyond.

Still standing where I was, I reflected that Iris's insolent jab had accomplished one thing: it had hardened my resolve to stand firm with Mr. Wooster. His unusual selection of more serious music had caused me to falter in a moment of concern, however, that way lead to ruin. For, no matter whether you believed in letting your master grow attached to you or not, if there was one thing all intelligent servants could agree on, it was not to let yourself grow attached to your master, and I had been getting far too close to that in my time with Mr. Wooster.

No, I had done what I had had to do, what I had been asked to do by Mrs. Travers, and if my solution was a little cold, then perhaps that would help to re-establish the proper distance between master and servant.

I strode purposefully down the stairs and knocked on the door of the music room and requested leave to speak to my master.

-x-

"Mutual animosity?" Mr. Wooster repeated numbly.

I had explained the psychological basis for my scheme of the night before, but Mr. Wooster was reacting rather strangely.

"**It is a recognized fact, sir, that there is nothing that so satisfactorily unites individuals who have been so unfortunate as to quarrel amongst themselves as a strong mutual dislike for some definite person. In my own family, if I may give a homely illustration, it was a generally accepted axiom that in times of domestic disagreement it was necessary only to invite my Aunt Annie for a visit to heal all breaches between the other members of the household." (2)**

"Aunt Annie, eh?"

I was slightly concerned that he would not look at me; he kept his eyes to the far wall. I tried to clarify things further. **"Yes, sir. In the mutual animosity excited by Aunt Annie, those who had become estranged were reconciled almost immediately. Remembering this, it occurred to me that were you, sir, to be established as the person responsible for the ladies and gentlemen being forced to spend the night in the garden, everybody would take so strong a dislike to you that in this common sympathy they would sooner or later come together."**

"I wonder how she felt about it."

"Sir?"

"Your Aunt Annie, Jeeves. I wonder how she felt about it. Because I can tell you how I felt about it." He turned glistening eyes to mine, and I was horrified at the bitter laugh he let out. "I should say cut to the quick, Jeeves, or even…" he took a shuddery breath, "_hurt_… But it's just too funny."

"Funny, sir?" This was not going how I thought.

"Funny, Jeeves. Downright hilarious, in fact. Here you are, wracking that marvellous fish-fed brain to find some way of turning Aunt Dahlia and the rest against me, and all the time it was completely unnecessary. I mean, my God, man! Do you have any idea of what they've put me through in the last few days?"

I did not know what to say.

He stood and started pacing wildly in front of me. "Do you?" he shouted. "Do you really think anyone in this house - any one of them at all - actually needed your help to hate me?"

"Sir, I don't understand - "

"Why, Jeeves, I'm just saying that it's funny, that's all! I mean, you've got to laugh, don't you, after finding out that your valet is straining his every bit of intellect to find some way to make all your friends and relations think badly of you? And all for nothing!" He stopped pacing and stood not six inches in front of me, angry tears trickling down his cheeks.

"Goodness me, Jeeves, but you must feel very foolish. Very foolish indeed. I know you must have gone to so much work to get everyone view me with contempt, but considering that my very own aunt asked me to kill myself just the other day, one thinks you hardly needed to have bothered."

"Sir, if I may, perhaps you are being a little over-dramatic. I cannot believe your aunt was serious - "

"_Do you think that matters, Jeeves?" _he demanded furiously of me. "Do you think it feels _good_ to hear the person that's the closest thing to a mother you've got say that to you?"

"I…I don't - "

"Well, it doesn't! No more than I suspect your Aunt Annie enjoys being some sort of…_sacrificial goat… _for the rest of your family. I don't care how much of a blister she is, no one deserves to be nothing more than an object of her loved ones' hatred! To have no other purpose than to let her family gang up on her and insult her behind her back like group of bullying schoolgirls!"

_"It was never like that!"_ I shouted without thinking.

Mr. Wooster blinked, slightly stunned, but only for a moment. "Oh no, Jeeves?" he continued, "Because that's what it sounds like to me. It sounds like no one in your family can be happy without a pawn to push around the board."

At that moment there was a small cough from by the door. Mr. Seppings had entered the room without our even hearing him.

"My apologies, Mr. Wooster, but there's a telephone call for you. From London."

"A call? Who…oh! Yes. Yes, of course. Thank you, Seppings. I'll take it in the library."

"Very good, sir. I'll see to it that you're not disturbed."

"Thank you, Seppings," Mr. Wooster said again, and followed the man out.

I, on the other hand, was left to wonder how much of this had been heard, and how much would have gone round the household by dinner.

-x-

_1) I know even Dahlia seems to use the nickname Bonzo when talking about her son, but I figured a visiting servant - even one as close to the family as Jeeves - might consider it a liberty and so use his real name instead. However, the problem is that I have NO IDEA what Bonzo's actual name is, or even if he has one, so I decided to call him Duncan._

_2) The text in bold is taken directly from "Right Ho, Jeeves"._


	4. Chapter 4

_**Chapter 4**_

It has long been a theory of mine that any man of a certain intelligence will also hold a corresponding creative ability in one important respect: the ability to explain away his own ill behaviour. Those of low cunning may enjoy it as well, but strangely, they are quite often more subconsciously aware that their justifications lack a certain something, whereas it seems to take a truly practical, rational individual to fool himself entirely with his reasoning.

I have no doubt it has a great deal to do with arrogance.

In any case, as much as it pains me to admit it now, I was so filled with conceit after Mr. Wooster's and my confrontation in the music room, that the behaviour which I was attempting to explain away was not the potential cruelty I may have shown towards my master, but my increasing inability to take control of the situation. Why was I not able to predict Mr. Wooster's reactions? Why could I not persuade him to see the situation from my viewpoint, and so coax him back into his normal good spirits? What obvious answer was I failing to see?

Determined to logically work through the problem, I decided to go for a walk across the grounds. I had hardly started when, realizing that I indeed had the _time_ to do such a thing, I reached my first conclusion: I was suffering from a lack of activity. The normal structure of my days was not there, and I was at loose ends. Laundry, the marketing, the preparation of meals, housekeeping duties, the reception of telegrams, the answering of phones - all were handled by the household staff. All of Mr. Wooster's bills had been paid before we left London. There were no outside social events to make arrangements for, nor any preparations to be made for entertaining at the flat. No travel arrangements or packing had been requested.

No, all that my duties at present consisted of were seeing to Mr. Wooster's wardrobe (a task already usurped by Frederick), running his bath, assisting with his dress (a service he apparently had not wished this morning), serving him tea or libations and running general errands, neither of the last two for which he had been present long enough that day to ask for. As for 'pitching in' with the Brinkley staff, I gathered very quickly that morning that my services were not required until the evening meal, if then.

So, when considered with the fact that, except for the last week here at the Travers' country seat, I had also been on my own in the flat for the two months Mr. Wooster was in Cannes, with barely anything to occupy myself beyond seeing to my own needs, it was easy to see that I must be stagnating.

Fast on the heels of that conclusion, was the thought that perhaps I was having trouble anticipating Mr. Wooster's behaviour due to the lack of our usual daily proximity for those same two months. Was it possible we had fallen out of synchronization, as it were? I had never noticed the need for such an adjustment when I returned from my yearly holidays, but in those instances, I was the one who had left and then returned to familiar surroundings. As a servant, one is expected to silently adapt to whatever circumstances one finds oneself in, without changing one's mood. A gentleman, on the other hand, has the luxury (or disadvantage) of being able adapt his circumstances to what _he_ desires, and therefore often grows over-accustomed to always having things a certain way. And when things change, or the unexpected arises, he is thrown out of sorts.

These conclusions of course consoled me as to my present disturbing inability to find an answer, but they did not provide any answers themselves. As I rounded the large oak that marked the southernmost boundary of the Travers' estate, random questions intruded into my thoughts.

Why had Mr. Wooster not requested me to ready for our return to London? True, it had only been a day and he was no doubt not in the best frame of mind, but instinct was telling me there was more to it.

Why had Mr. Wooster not brought up the matter of his fall? If he wished to make me feel contrite, it seemed like an obvious ploy. Was he embarrassed, or, even in his resentment, did the Code of the Woosters preclude him from making use of such a low tactic? Is this why he did not want me to see him undressed this morning, or was it simply a way of playing the martyr? And why was he so distraught in the first place? Nothing ever dampened his buoyant spirits for long and he was certainly not one to hold a grudge.

It seems foolish now to have been so blind, but I simply could not understand it. I can only plead that I was completely unaware of how much my thought processes were clouded by things other than stagnation and being away from Mr. Wooster for two months. As I stated before, an intelligent man can fool himself as to the truth of many things.

However, at that point, my path seemed clear: I needed more information.

-x-

"Good afternoon, this is the Market Snodsbury operator. How may I place your call?"

"Good afternoon, Miss Collins."

"Oh… it's _you_, Mr. Jeeves." I nearly faltered in my objective at the suddenly coquettish lilt.

"Yes, Miss. I was wondering if you could possibly assist me, Miss Collins."

"Of course, Mr. Jeeves. I'll do anything I can."

"That would be most welcome, Miss Collins."

"You don't have to keep calling me Miss Collins, you know. You could call me _Elsie_." Her voice had got uncommonly…_throaty_ all of a sudden.

"I would hate to think I left you in a position that might lead to the question of some impropriety, Miss Collins. I would not want you to risk your future prospects at the telephone company."

"Oh, Mr. Jeeves, you are so considerate of a girl."

"Thank you, miss. Now, if you could - "

"Of course, Mr. Jeeves. How can I take care of you?"

"My master asked me to send out a very important letter for him in the evening post, but he left in quite a hurry for an appointment in Worcester and I did not fully catch the name as he ran out. All I know is that the letter is to go to the person he was consulting on the telephone earlier today. I know it is most irregular, but if you could perhaps inform me as to the individual's name, I would be most appreciative. I am terribly worried the matter is urgent and I would hate for a delay to cause Mr. Wooster any difficulty."

She hesitated. "Well, it's just that we're not supposed to…"

"Please, Miss Collins… Elsie," I said at my most sincere. "I would be extremely grateful."

"You won't tell anyone?"

"Rest assured, Miss, you can trust to my discretion."

"Well, all right. It was a Mr. Henshaw, in London."

"Archibald Henshaw?"

"Yes, that's him."

"Thank you very much, Miss Collins. You've been of the greatest assistance to me."

"If there's ever anything more I can do for you, Mr. Jeeves, you will be certain to let me know, won't you?"

"Indeed, Miss. Thank you again," I said, before finally being able to ring off. Modern communication was becoming more gruelling by the day.

However, that was irrelevant. The question facing me now was why on Earth Mr. Wooster was calling his solicitor.

-x-

Despite the chilly looks from the household staff, I was determined to serve at dinner and so I offered my services to Mr. Seppings when Mrs. Travers was in close proximity, therefore making it difficult for him to refuse.

Mr. Wooster, after having missed breakfast, the picnic luncheon, and afternoon tea, finally presented himself to partake of a meal with the party. The first volley lobbed his way was from young Mr. Glossop.

"Bertie, old man! How good to see you! We'd all thought you had drowned!"

Mr. Wooster looked confused, as if he'd been too preoccupied to realize what the main gist of the dinner conversation was going to be. "How's that again, Tuppy?"

I could have told him that delaying the inevitable would only make it worse.

"The rain last night, you chump!" Mr. Glossop answered, then let out what one can only call a guffaw, "Or in the old giggle juice today - take your pick!"

"I'm sorry, what?" I was startled to note the look of genuine perplexity on my master's face. This caused me to wonder where he could have been if not at a local establishment.

"Didn't know a stop in the road like Market Snodsbury had a pub that opened at 8.30 in the morning," Mr. Glossop continued, as if Mr. Wooster hadn't said a word. "You must tell us where it is, Bertie."

"Oh, yes, you must!" Mr. Fink-Nottle chimed in.

"I… I don't understand…" Mr. Wooster protested, and for the first time I noticed how exhausted he looked.

"Good heavens, you blister, you're not under the surface at this moment, are you?" Mr. Glossop continued to tease. "Or is there still water in your ears from last night?" he asked and then gave my master a hearty slap on the back.

"Maybe it's mould by now!" Mr. Fink-Nottle suggested, and, in the midst of everyone's laughter, only Mr. Seppings and I started at the sight of Mr. Wooster suddenly coming over very pale.

"Well, I suppose we're being too rough on the poor old thing," Mr. Glossop pretended to commiserate, "Straddling a bicycle seat for eighteen miles, after all - why, he's worn out the most intelligent part of him!"

Mr. Wooster managed a wan smile, but thankfully was saved at that point by the sound of the dinner gong. The jests subsided and conversation for the most part moved onto other things as the group moved into the dining room.

It was just after the fish course, however, when Mrs. Travers noticed Mr. Wooster's uncharacteristic silence.

"Good heavens, you poor blot, what's the matter with you?" she asked. "It's not like you to mope like this. You've looked an ass before and never let it get you down."

Mr. Wooster pulled himself out of the unfocused stare he had been directing towards his wine glass for the last five minutes, and forced himself to regard his aunt. "I'm sorry, old thing. Just a little tired, don't you know."

Mrs. Travers rolled her eyes. "More likely you've fallen on your head." Mr. Wooster pulled back as if slapped, but Mrs. Travers, busy cutting into a stalk of asparagus, didn't observe it. A moment too late, she turned and leaned towards him. "Perhaps you should stick to water for now, you young menace," she advised him _sotto voce, _though with Mrs. Travers' famed ability of projection, the entire table was set to smirking.

"Be fair, Mummy, he probably got his fill of water last night," Miss Angela laughed, though with a gentle smile to let Mr. Wooster know she was not serious.

"Well, there is that," Mrs. Travers conceded, with a genial smile herself. "However," she went on, returning to her normal volume, "as to being tired, you execrable fungus, it's your own silly fault. Whatever possessed you to pull such a foolish prank as that?"

I tensed, suddenly certain Mr. Wooster would reveal my part in the scheme. And, while I was fully confident that the Traverses and their guests would understand the psychology of the entire scheme, it would have been most certainly awkward to defend myself over the dinner table.

But Mr. Wooster only grimaced and replied, "I don't remember."

"Hit his head, most definitely," Mr. Fink-Nottle put in.

"Oh, Gussie!" Miss Bassett exclaimed reprovingly, and I saw Mr. Wooster give a sudden wince and by the positions of their arms, it was not hard to see that Miss Bassett had surprised him by grabbing hold of his hand under the table. And, as most of the table resumed their individual conversations with one another, she gave him a look which could only be described as pitying, as if to say that she, and she alone, knew why he was so distracted.

"Um…yes," Mr. Wooster said, disengaging his hand and looking slightly panic-stricken. If I hadn't informed him of the dissolution of his engagement to Miss Bassett, I fear he might have knocked over his chair and upset the serving trolley behind him.

"Yes, what, Attila?" Mrs. Travers demanded, unaware of what had just happened. "What are you blithering about now? No one's asked a question."

Mr. Wooster sighed. "Sorry, Aunt Dahlia. I must have been wool-gathering and thought I heard something."

"Bertie Wooster, what's got into you?"

"How do you mean, Aunt Dahlia?"

"Well, look at you! Gormless is the only word which springs to mind. And you've been so dull all night. Whatever's become of the vaunted Bertie Wooster, life of the party? You should meet my nephew, I tell people, he's always got an entertaining story to tell."

"Do you really?" Mr. Wooster asked, eyes lightening for the first time that day.

"Of course! Bertie's always good for a laugh, I say."

"Oh," Mr. Wooster said softly.

"I know what the problem is. You've taken too much on yourself. That's where you went wrong. Trying to solve everyone's problems, why, it's just ridiculous. No, you go back to listening to Jeeves. When I think of all the trouble you could have spared us over these last few days, if you had just done the sensible thing and let Jeeves handle it, I could kick Spink-Bottle in the leg."

"What's that?" Mr. Fink-Nottle turned towards the pair and asked.

"Nothing, Augustus. Finish your dinner," Mrs. Travers ordered. Mr. Fink-Nottle obediently turned away again, finishing his beef bourguignon, while listening to Mr. Travers declaim on the subject of the perils of taxation. "My word, Bertie, that young Spink-Bottle may be a fairly innocuous specimen, but he eats like a lizard!" She shook her head. "Now what was I saying? Oh yes, you should leave the thinking to Jeeves. Now take the last few days - thankfully, things all worked out by themselves in the end without help from either of you, but I'm sure if Jeeves had had a hand in it, we could have solved every problem within five minutes of his arrival and saved ourselves no end of bother!"

Mr. Wooster looked up and his eyes went wide. "But - "

"No! No buts, Bertie. You must learn to not interfere with Jeeves! The man cannot work his wonders with you constantly butting in. And you complicated matter interminably. Why, what if one of your silly ideas had caused a rift too large for even Jeeves to solve?"

"But he did - " His puzzlement was natural - the truth behind the matter of the firebell was so foremost in his mind that he had forgot the others knew nothing of my part in it, for good or bad.

"I'm sure he did try to think of something, but you no doubt scuppered his plans. Which is why I'm telling you to leave it to Jeeves in future - he knows how to arrange things."

Mr. Wooster levelled his cold gaze on me as I poured another glass of wine for Mr. Glossop. "He certainly does indeed," was all he said.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Chapter 5**_

I have long held an interest in psychology, but admit I have thought little on that particular method of analysis which deals with the interpretation of dreams. As I have usually remembered very few upon waking, and comprehended far fewer, they have hitherto held little interest for me, and before this I had always ascribed to the theory that they were simply the product of random activity in the brain. However, the night following Mr. Wooster's bicycle ride brought with it a nightmare I shall not soon forget.

Mister Wooster and I retired that night still very much at an impasse. Though I suspected he wanted to do nothing so much as excuse himself and turn in for the evening, he patiently endured the rest of the meal, as well as the boisterous - and lengthy - session of cards and conversation which followed. When the time finally arrived where he could exit without comment - which was not until the others made to withdraw - I accompanied him to his bedchamber, my intentions being to perform my usual duties in terms of dress and hopefully force a clearing of the air in the process. I had not been blind to his increasing stiffness over the course of the evening, as his family apparently had, nor to a slight faltering on the third topmost stair as he made his way to his rooms. The last could have been perhaps put down to the effects of exhaustion combined with the wine at dinner, if not for the sudden sharp intake of breath he made when I took hold of his left elbow to steady him. No, it was now clear to me he was in some pain, and by pressing him to admit he had fallen the night before, my wish was that it would provide us with an opening to settle the matter between us. But he forestalled me with a request for a glass of warm milk.

"Sir?" My master had a most particular dislike of said beverage.

He sat on the edge of his bed, his shoulders uncharacteristically slumped. "Please, Jeeves," he appealed to me listlessly.

I examined him closely, my worry growing. I started to ask if he was well, coming at the matter directly, but realized how little point there would be to such an exercise - either he would lie to evade the issue, or I would push him into a discussion he was far too weary for, no doubt causing him to grow angry once more and further widening the rift between us. "Of course, sir," I said gently, and went to prepare him his milk.

And, as one may have guessed, he was already fast asleep when I returned. I sighed; loathe to wake him, I considered that it was perhaps for the best to put our conversation off until morning, and took the milk with me as I went to my own quarters.

Warm milk is not a particular favourite of mine either, and I attribute the restless half-sleep I experienced to the uneasy way it sat on my stomach. Tossing and turning peevishly for most of the night, my dreams - for I believe there were more than one - only served to increase my ill mood.

That is, until the last one, which horrified me.

It began with Mr. Wooster and myself in a small, empty theatre. We were soon joined by Mr. And Mrs. Travers, Miss Angela, Mr. Glossop, Mr. Fink-Nottle, Miss Bassett, and finally by Monsieur Anatole. As the group gathered, conversation unsurprisingly turning to what sort of entertainment we should have. This of course was not frightening in itself, but in the common nature of nightmares, this very innocent sounding event was pervaded by a sinister atmosphere, the extent of which it is impossible to convey.

The discussion did not go on long before all of the group but Mr. Wooster turned to me for the final word. He, on the other hand, had moved behind me and was regarding the entire assemblage with increasing nervousness. But that meant nothing to me, however. I turned to him and declared with cold detachment, "I do believe we shall have Mr. Wooster as our entertainment."

"Jeeves!" he cried, and his shock was terrible for me to hear.

I grabbed him by the arm and thrust him forward towards the others. As a group we rushed him and pulled him bodily towards the stage. He tried to jolly us out of it at first - though the fear was plain in his eyes - protesting with a laugh that we could not possibly be serious, while all the while desperately dragging his feet and lunging backwards to try and break free.

But as his foot touched the stage, his joking quickly turned to pleading, and then to begging. He squirmed ever more frantically as we wrenched him over towards the middle of the platform, while we callously chided him to be a good sport and play along. By the time we placed him centre stage, it seemed to me he was screaming, though I have no picture of him physically doing so.

The first act was simple: he stood on stage as we derided him and pelted him with all manner of rotten fruit. The flow of images is distorted in my waking mind, but I vividly remember hitting him in the upper part of his face with a very large apple and the entire throng laughing all the harder as it knocked him off-balance.

Things then progressed drastically for my poor master. Instead of rotten fruit, we were launching harder objects. Stones? I could not tell, but was left to watch in horror as the theatre rang with hilarity at each ineffectual attempt by the frightened man on stage to dodge the incoming projectiles. I could have wept as Mr. Wooster, smeared and dirty, slipped pathetically upon the mess onstage, only to then take a hit to his ear by something sharp enough to draw blood.

With no interval between, we were suddenly upon the platform as well. We moved in a circle around him, castigating him much more cruelly now, reaching out to pull at his clothes or slap him, all in order to keep him turning round and round, always off centre. Then, as we started jerking him by the arms, this way and that, the horror of the thing grew as I sensed what the finale would be.

In pairs - the Traverses, Miss Angela and Mr. Glossop, Mr. Fink-Nottle and Miss Bassett, and finally myself and Monsieur Anatole; those same pairs which I knew in the unspoken rules of the dream had caused me to choose Mr. Wooster, as the odd man out, for punishment - we latched onto his limbs and started to pull.

Some say you don't really hear sounds in dreams, but I know this is untrue. For it was the sound of Mr. Wooster's shoulder joint being dislocated from its socket which caused me to wake breathing hard and sick to my very heart.

-x-

Contemplating the dream now, I am surprised by how hard it still is to distance myself from it. I had always believed, that with my general grasp of subtleties and everyday nuances, I would not need such blunt symbolic representations to understand the message. In more cynical moments, I almost feel I should be disappointed at the lack of creativity displayed by my unconscious mind. But even I, the person involved, can tell it is only a feeble attempt to ignore the disturbing emotional component of the incident. It horrified me then, but that it still haunts me now leaves me distressingly uncomfortable and raises questions I am not certain I wish to answer.

Be that as it may, on the morning in question, such thoughts never entered my head. Instead, I was badly shaken by the terrible images of Mr. Wooster being subjected to the unfeeling brutality of the mob I had lead the others into becoming. Whether the sensation was a product of common decency alone, at last reasserting itself when faced with such a spectacle, or from that strange effect peculiar to nightmares where the sense of fear is heightened beyond proportion even to the awful events being played out in front of one, I was finally able to - dimly - glimpse my own guilt.

Unfortunately, that insight was quickly lost. That I did not comprehend the true monstrousness of my betrayal even then disgusts me, but as the sheer rawness of those first few seconds following my dream dissipated, an obstinate denial took hold of me once more, along with a wilful refusal to be ruled by a bad dream. After such an experience, I of course felt some sympathy for Mr. Wooster, as well as some degree of the sort of protectiveness one naturally feels towards someone who has been seen to have been in pain. I could even admit to finally feeling some regret for what happened - that I had isolated my master from his family and friends and made him the object of scorn at a time when he was already feeling unloved, had been an unforeseen blunder on my part, and so I was willing to give Mr. Wooster the apology I now saw in some part that he deserved.

But true remorse still eluded me. It was too easy to once more push any acknowledgment of my guilt to some hidden part of my mind and fool myself into thinking that I had only ever intended to help the family. That some incident had befallen Mr. Wooster was unfortunate, and one that I was sorry had happened, but it did not lead me to examine my own motives in sending him on the ride in the first place. Therefore, when I took Mr. Wooster his morning tea, I was perhaps more humble in manner, yet remained nearly as complacent as I had been the morning before.

To my surprise, however, when I reached his chamber, Mr. Wooster was not in his bed. I knew he had not gone to visit the Stretchley-Budds at Kingham Manor with the other young people, and Mr. Travers had gone to Birmingham for the day on business. I wondered if he had perhaps arisen early to attend the church bazaar with Mrs. Travers. It seemed unlikely, especially in light of his physical state the night before, but with Mrs. Travers involved I could not rule it out, for as genial as she can be, she is not a woman to be denied when she desires something.

"He's in the library," came the voice of Mr. Seppings from behind me, obviously anticipating my question.

I was relieved; I did not relish another day of his avoiding me by decamping to the village. "Does he require anything of me?" I asked.

"He will be up momentarily, but he has asked me to inform you that he wishes to return to London tomorrow, so that you may have plenty of time to complete the packing as you see fit."

Why I made a jest of it I am not certain, but I said, "I hope Mr. Wooster does not believe I require an entire twenty-fours to pack what little we brought."

If my master had been there, he no doubt would have been able to find some suitably colourful way to describe Mr. Seppings' gaze, but I am left with only 'contemptuous'.

"Evidently, the phone call which Mr. Wooster has just taken, has relieved him greatly. It would appear he did not take your abilities into account in the midst of his exuberance. "

Though this new piece of information was curious and possibly a cause for some concern, I was greatly pleased to hear my master's mood had improved without the necessity of my apologizing too strenuously. I am not one to display my emotions, but it would seem there was enough expression for Mr. Seppings to discern, and it did not please him in the slightest.

"You have forgotten yourself!" he suddenly exclaimed.

I was taken aback. I had expected Mr. Seppings' to feel disapprove of my recent actions, for he was far more fond of Mr. Wooster than Mr. Wooster knew, but I had never thought to hear his tone slip from the rigid, business-like politeness he always maintained above stairs to such hatred, even in the worst of reprimands. "I do not take your meaning, Mr. Seppings," I said.

"Of course you do. You are hardly an imbecile, though I do wonder at times when I see you risk losing such a soft position as Mr. Wooster provides . However, I will concede you do not realize that you have got off far more easily than you could ever possibly deserve."

I drew myself up to my not unimpressive height to glare down at the man. It was a shameless tactic, but one I did almost unconsciously, so out of my element as I was at receiving criticism. It had no affect in any case; Mr. Seppings was the head butler in an important house, one run moreover, by a shrewd man of business and his very strong-willed wife. To survive this long, he could not be a man who intimidated easily. "Though my relationship with my master is no business of yours," I informed him, "it may please you to know that I came here with the express intentions of apologizing to Mr. Wooster."

"Did you now?" Mr. Seppings asked as he stepped further into the room.

"I did."

"Well, it would certainly make a welcome change, wouldn't it?"

"I beg your pardon?"

He regarded me fiercely. "You're not good enough for him," he declared. "_You_ are the servant, not the master. Your loyalty is to him and it would serve you well to remember that. It is also not your place to seek favour with anyone of higher status or greater means, like some vulgar, grasping, social climber. " I was about to object, but he went on. "As for pardons, I might tell you that it is not mine you should be begging, if I actually thought for a moment you were sincere."

"I was… _am_… sincere!"

"I find that most difficult to believe when I think of the pattern you have made of such behaviour."

"I demand to know what you mean by that."

"Do you need to ask?" he sputtered, as if astounded the answer was even in question. "You are a monster! I don't think I'm capable of listing all of the times I have seen you manipulate that poor lad to your own ends. All the times you've made him look a fool or a bounder. All the times you've strived to supplant him in the eyes of his family and friends - they tell him to his face that they've only asked for his company in order to consult with you! Indeed, even all of the times you've manoeuvred him into danger are becoming too many to count. It is positively abhorrent how you abuse him; one could almost define it as pathological! But perhaps the worst is how you've spared no effort to keep him alone in this life!"

I was too stunned by Mr. Seppings' tirade to think clearly. "Those young ladies would not have made him happy. I broke those engagements at Mr. Wooster's own request and - "

"Engagements? I am not talking of engagements, though I think it demonstrates a shocking amount of presumption to interfere in someone's life as you've done - and do not attempt to convince me it was all at Mr. Wooster's request; he would not feel the way he does if you did not prompt his fears in the first place - but I am speaking of the matter of Mr. Wooster's sister."

"Mr. Wooster changed his mind of his own free will - "

"Mr. Wooster changed his mind because you contrived so neatly to make him appear an ass in front of an entire school. Oh yes, I know the story. I may not have much opportunity to frequent it, but I too belong to the Junior Ganymede Club, and I know full well what you wrote in that… _book_," he spat. "My God man, do you not believe Mr. Wooster is already alone enough in this world that you must work to keep him from his only sister? It boggles the mind! And to further consider that you put the whole thing to paper as _instructions_, as a guide for young men on how to manipulate others to their own advantage… I cannot even find the words to describe the gall of it! The effrontery! But I will tell you this: if you think you can stand there and convince me that you feel any remorse whatsoever, after so coldly boasting of your destructive cruelty for all to see, then you are sorely mistaken. We shall be here until the Last Trump before you persuade me of such a thing!"

"Jeeves?"

My mouth dropped open with horror. My master was standing at the door.

"Jeeves, is this true?"


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter 6**_

My master stood there, looking as though he'd been struck.

"Sir, I beg you to let me explain," I began. "It is not what you think."

He didn't say a word, but only lurched into the room and dropped heavily into the nearest chair.

"Mr. Wooster?" Mr. Seppings inquired gently. "Do you wish me to stay?"

"I… I'm sorry…" he stammered, "I don't know….what…what was that again, Seppings?"

Mr. Seppings stepped in front of Mr. Wooster and placed a hand on his shoulder, something I had never seen him do with any other member of the household before. "Do you wish me to stay, Mr. Wooster?" he repeated slowly. "I will not leave you if I can be of any assistance."

"I…" Mr. Wooster swallowed hard before being able to go on, "No. No, that's quite… quite all right, Seppings. Thank you," he said, and patted the hand on his shoulder gratefully.

Mr. Seppings straightened and removed his hand, but hesitated for a moment, his expression uncertain. I was surprised to see in his parting glance at me not hatred or contempt but a pointed look of caution.

"Sir," I started again as soon as Mr. Seppings was out the door, "I can explain. You had just recovered from influenza and appeared, to me, to be in a somewhat susceptible state. Under the circumstances, I believed you were making an impulsive decision based on ephemeral feelings of vulnerability and wistfulness and was concerned you did not understand the full realities of what it would be like to live in a house with young girls. Therefore, I wished you to be in possession of all the facts before you altered your entire life in a way which you or they might come to regret later."

I waited in vain for a response, but none was forthcoming - as with the confrontation in the music room, my master only stared, not at me, but at some point in the distance beyond. However, this time it was not outwardly in a dark cloud of anger, but blankly inward, like a man battered by great storm.

After I moment, I continued on, "As for the Club book, I do admit that I wrote of the incident, but I must insist that it was never about boasting, nor about providing instructions on coercion… Sir, are you well?"

He gasped and I quickly squatted in front of him to examine him more closely. "What is it, sir?"

"My God, I've been so stupid!"

Greatly alarmed, I put my hands on his shoulders and actually shook him. "Sir!" I ordered, "No! Please, you mustn't say that! I betrayed your trust, but it is not as bad as you think. I swear upon everything I hold dear that what I wrote was only to help young men starting out, to show them ways in which to help their master - "

"I feel sick," he announced suddenly and the way he gripped the arms of the chair and squeezed his eyes tightly shut had me rushing for the wash basin on top of the chest of drawers.

"Sir? What is it? You've gone terribly pale and you are perspiring."

"Has it always been like this?" he demanded wildly.

"Let me get you a wet cloth, sir."

"_Has it always been like this!" _he shouted.

"I am afraid I do not understand, sir."

"Between the two of us, Jeeves. All this time…" It was a ragged laugh he gave out at this, that suddenly erupted into a sob. "All this time…Oh my Lord, I've been such a bally _fool!_"

"Sir, no!"

"I can see where you might resent me - I know you're so much smarter and so much more capable - but did you really need to play with me all this time? Am I just some _thing_ to manipulate and amuse yourself with, so that all your chums at the Junior Ganymede can have a laugh? Or is it more?" Large, stricken eyes looked up to meet mine. "My God, Jeeves, do you _hate_ me? Is that it?"

"_SIR!" _I exclaimed, shocked and hurt beyond words.

"You must," he mumbled and shook his head, talking more to himself now. "Whether you know it or not. There's no other explanation." He abruptly stumbled to his feet, swaying slightly as he did so.

The innate servant in me overrode the emotional distress I was feeling; my master was in need of me. I reached out to gently push him back down onto the chair, but he would have none of it. "No!" he cried and frantically batted my hands away.

"Sir, please!"

"NO, I said!"

"Please, sir, I must insist. You are ill!"

"I'm fine! Absolutely topping! Now leave me alone!" he ordered. Then he took three steps towards the door, trying to dash away from me, but instead staggered into the side of the dresser hard enough to rattle and knock several bottles of cologne and assorted toiletries to the floor with a shattering crash. Two leaping strides brought me to him and I managed to catch him - just - as he moaned and slumped to the floor.

I carefully eased Mr. Wooster's sprawled form into a more comfortable position. "Sir? Sir, can you hear me?" I pleaded as I lightly patted his clammy cheek. His eyelids fluttered slightly, but did not open. I then tried wetting my handkerchief with some water from the pitcher and dabbing his forehead and neck, but the water was room temperature, not cold enough to bring him around.

I heard running in the corridor and, at the same instant I opened my mouth to call for help, Mr. Seppings and Edward burst into the room.

"What did you do to him!" Edward shouted at me, and before I could protect myself, he stepped over Mr. Wooster and shoved me roughly away.

"Edward!"

"But Mr. Seppings, he's hurt Mister Bertie!"

"Never mind that now, Edward," Mr. Seppings snapped as he knelt down beside Mr. Wooster. "Go and ring for the doctor, and then fetch the smelling salts from the cabinet in the lavatory."

"Yes, Mr. Seppings!" a wide-eyed Edward said and ran out again, after shooting a very ugly look in my direction.

"Now," Mr. Seppings said, turning to me, "What happened?"

"We were discussing… several matters," I began, "when Mr. Wooster complained of feeling ill. He then stumbled into the dresser and simply collapsed."

Just then Mr. Wooster groaned.

"Master Bertram? Can you hear me?" Mr. Seppings pressed, his voice gentle but tinged with a frightened urgency.

"Sepp…ings?" my master slurred.

Mr. Seppings smiled. "Yes, Master Bertram, it is Seppings. How do you feel?" he asked, and I watched with surprise as he tenderly brushed Mr. Wooster's hair back from his forehead.

"Awful," Mr. Wooster answered, his voice cracking in the middle of the word. Suddenly he squeezed his eyes tightly shut and rolled hard onto his side. The next instant he gulped and his entire frame convulsed; I grabbed the wash basin from where it had fallen out of Mr. Wooster's lap before, and had it in position, but it was only the dry heaves. When he finished, he fell back trembling and shivering, and Mr. Seppings ordered me to pull the counterpane off the bed and cover Mr. Wooster with it.

I did so, and was alarmed again to see Mr. Wooster's eyes showing mostly white. "No, no, Master Bertram! Stay with us now lad!" Mr. Seppings demanded, and patted his cheek much as I had done.

Mr. Wooster's head lolled drunkenly in our direction. "Dizzy…" he muttered, his voice sounding so distant and dream-like. "Head…bally strange…light…" I frowned as I realized how close he was to passing out again.

Mr. Seppings kept talking to him. "Try and stay awake, Master Bertram. That's it, yes. We need you to stay awake. Now, can you tell me what happened?"

"Happened?"

Mr. Seppings glance darted to me, then back to Mr. Wooster. "Did Mr. Jeeves accost you, sir?"

"Mr. Seppings!" I protested. "How could anyone ever think I could do such a thing!"

"What else were we to think? You were arguing with Mr. Wooster and then the next thing we hear is a large crash and we come in to find him unconscious on the floor."

"Noooo…" Mr. Wooster groaned. "No, he didn't do it… tried to help."

I looked down at my master and marvelled that, as devastated and angry and terribly ill as he was, he could still find it in him to defend me, to still be just and honest, and I truly wondered for the first time if I was worthy of him.

"Can you tell us what's wrong then, Master Bertram? Have you been ill before this?"

"S' morning. S' why up so early… already up when you came," my master answered. "I say, but I do feel all light-headed and… and queer."

"Do you hurt anywhere, sir?" Mr. Seppings asked.

"My side and my shoulder," Mr. Wooster said, his breathing coming more rapidly now. "And my stomach. H..hurts like the devil!" he hissed.

"Which side, sir?" I asked, then immediately wished I hadn't, for I couldn't know how Mr. Wooster would react and what effect that reaction might have on him.

But he was apparently too ill to be concerned with our argument. "Left," he panted, and Mr. Seppings and I exchanged worried glances at this new sign of danger.

I quickly pulled the counterpane down so that Mr. Seppings could open Mr. Wooster's waistcoat. A cold sweat broke out on Mr. Wooster's brow and he clenched his teeth as Mr. Seppings started to undo his shirt buttons. Suddenly he flinched and cried out piteously at a too close brush of Mr. Seppings' fingers under his ribs.

"Sir, are you in much pain?" I asked as I mopped his forehead with my handkerchief as gently as I could.

He whimpered and could only nod.

I believe that it was only years of constantly maintaining a mien of strict composure that allowed me not to gasp and cry out at what I saw when Mr. Seppings pulled open my master's shirt. As it was, my eyes widened with horror.

"Mr. Jeeves - "

_It is my fault, _was the only thing I could think_. All my fault._

"Reginald?"

_This is my doing. I did this. I did this to him. _

"Reginald! Snap out of it, man!"

My head rose with a jolt to look at Mr. Seppings. "Go find Edward," he ordered, "and tell him to call the doctor again and tell him that we're taking Mr. Wooster to the hospital. Then be back here as quick as you can."

"Yes, Mr. Seppings."

"Well, go, man! Don't just stand there!"

"Yes." And with that, I stumbled to my feet and ran to find Edward.

-x-

During the next quarter hour, I did not recognize myself. Far from being the omniscient and serenely efficient solver of problems that Mr. Wooster often paints me as, I found myself rendered almost completely helpless, only able to act at the orders of a cooler head than mine. It was Mr. Seppings who instructed us on how to lift Mr. Wooster onto a blanket and carry him between us so as not to aggravate his condition. It was he who said that Mr. Wooster must lay flat and determined that the back of the gardener's lorry would be the best way to transport him. And it was he who made sure that we had blankets to cover him and umbrellas to shield him from the drizzling rain that he rightly predicted would start at any moment.

I, however, while believing myself to be outwardly calm, felt… perhaps _dazed _is the most fitting word. While not as paralyzed as I had been when I first beheld Mr. Wooster's injuries, I could not seem to think. I could not keep myself from obsessively dwelling on those bruises - not purple green ones upon his skin, but the ominous discolorations that seemed to be welling up from within - or from the slightly swollen rigidity of his lower torso. It was all too easy to see what Mr. Seppings suspected: that Mr. Wooster had suffered some kind of internal rupture and was at this very moment bleeding inside, perhaps fatally. And that was an image I could not force my mind past; it played itself out again and again all along that interminably long ride to the cottage hospital on the other side of Pershore.

Then, of course, there was also the way he had screamed when we failed to put him down gently enough when placing him in the back of the lorry to dwell on.

To make matters worse, we were taking the same road that Mr. Wooster had set out on the night before last - _sent out by me, on that blasted, damned bicycle! _I could not help berating myself with. And because we could not travel as quickly as we wished, not only due to the limitations of the vehicle, but also for fear of causing Mr. Wooster further injury, it become a painfully drawn out torture for the both of us. Each bump in the road, each turn or stop felt in the back of that rattling claptrap of a vehicle, caused him to cry out anew, which in turn sent a cringing sensation to clench at my spine. If I had not been so frantically worried for him, I might have thanked Heaven when my poor master finally lost consciousness halfway to our destination.

"I do not understand you," Mr. Seppings unexpectedly shouted at me over the sound of the rain and the clatter of the lorry. "Is it that you are finally feeling guilt over something, or simply the shock of having your handiwork brought home to you for once that has you so shaken?"

I had no answer for him.

"Or is it that, in some twisted fashion, you _do_ care for him? But if you care for him, why is it that you hurt him so?" His words were harsh, but his tone was more puzzled than anything else; it was almost as if he was reconsidering his view of me.

"I do not know," I said.

We did not speak further on the subject, but at the hospital I was to receive a further blow. When the new porter came out to assist us, he saw my master's face and exclaimed, "My heavens! It's Mr. Nixon back again!"


	7. Chapter 7

_**Chapter 7**_

Mr. Nixon. I am not a fanciful man, but if there is one name I suspect will haunt the rest of my days, it is that one.

_An absurd little story, sir, though I confess that I have always found it droll… _

As it was, the porter's exclamation was so shocking, on top of everything else I had to feel guilty about, that it pulled me up sharply and caused me to stagger in my tracks. I wanted to demand of the porter where he had heard that name, but as I was helping to carry Mr. Wooster, my sudden stop jolted him back to painful consciousness and triggered a most awful scream.

"For goodness sakes! Get that poor man inside!" a voice ordered from top of the steps leading to the hospital. It was Nurse Philpot, a woman my master had once described as being built along the same battleship lines as Mrs. Travers, and the stalwart backbone of the Dalgairns Cottage Hospital. The speed at which she had additional porters bringing forth a stretcher and whisking Mr. Wooster away would have rivalled any feat of mine.

Inside to meet us were two men. Dr. Lemon I had met before; dependable and far more astute than his slightly rumpled appearance and sad eyes led one to believe, he attended every fund-raising fete Mrs. Travers arranged for the hospital. However, the second man - tall, slightly graying and somewhat heavyset in a comfortable way, and dressed far more expensively than any country doctor I was acquainted with - was a stranger. And yet I felt I had seen his face before.

"Good heavens, Richardson, it's young Wooster!" Dr. Lemon said.

"What?" the stranger boomed, "not the young fellow himself? My word, I wanted to meet him, but I did not expect it like this!"

It was Dr. Lemon's comment that brought the memory back - this was apparently Northrup Richardson, the famous neurosurgeon. I had read of his work in numerous scientific publications. But I was perplexed as to how he knew of Mr. Wooster, or why he was visiting such a small hospital as this.

"Take him to the examining room, Philpot," Dr. Lemon said to the porter who had greeted us (Nurse Philpot's youngest son, as I was later to learn), and, as the young man started to do so, I unthinkingly made to follow.

"Now then, young man, where do you think you're going?" Nurse Philpot asked, though not unkindly.

"I am Mr. Wooster's valet," I said, rather ridiculously. Following him had simply been a naturally impulse, but when she confronted me, I felt suddenly disturbed at the idea of his being out of my sight.

"Now, now, pet, don't you worry - your master will be well taken care of. But there's nothing you can do, so you just stay put here for the present. I expect Mr. and Mrs. Travers will wish to speak with you when they arrive."

I was dumbfounded. It had not even crossed my mind to send out anyone to locate Mr. Wooster's relatives. Whatever was the matter with me?

"The mistress should be here soon," Mr. Seppings said. He addressed the nurse, but I have no doubt it was more for my benefit. "I sent Frederick out to fetch her, and Mrs. Dodd is seeing to finding the rest of them."

Nurse Philpot nodded and then directed us to wait in a small room that faced the back garden. The hospital, which like most cottage hospitals of its type, had once been a medium-sized private residence and my guess is that the waiting room had once been the servants parlour. However, I barely noticed the accoutrements at the time, being far more concerned with the present situation. As Dr. Lemon entered and proceeded to ask Mr. Seppings several questions, I gathered my thoughts and resolved to determine a course of action.

I needed to take control. I ignored the voice of my conscience telling me that it was my taking control that had got Mr. Wooster into trouble in the first place and told myself that if I were to have any hopes at all of finding the best way to help my master, there were many questions I required answers to. And to do so meant I needed more information.

A good servant, if he wishes to get on, will naturally develop ways of keeping abreast of all the news or information which may serve his employer. Ascertaining his master's interests and reading all of the latest publications to do with that subject is one way. Gossiping with tailors for up and coming trends or with tradesmen for news of things which may alter the master's schedule, is another. And a network of contacts between fellow domestics for mutual benefit is absolutely essential.

However, there are also less savoury methods - ways that are truthfully more about survival in the field, as it were, as they allow a servant to stay two steps ahead in terms of machinations or potential catastrophes. For instance, while I would never recommend reading an employer's private papers, an alert glance at their general subject can offer a wealth of information. There is also the indulging in of gossip at a village hostelry or the bribing of a doorman or laundrywoman. Distasteful, it is true, but occasionally necessary.

And then there is eavesdropping.

It would perhaps shock Mr. Wooster to know how often the feats which so impress him come down to things like frank prying on my part. I do not like it, but sometimes tasks cannot be accomplished without it, and as long as I refrain from abusing _his _privacy too much, I am usually able to tell myself that it is all in a good cause.

Without giving it a second thought, I made my excuses to Mr. Seppings and proceeded to make my way to the examining room where they had taken Mr. Wooster. Once I was just outside of it, I peered surreptitiously through the small round window in the door and listened closely.

Dr. Richardson, who was bent over Mr. Wooster, examining him, tsked.

"What does it look like to you?" I heard Doctor Lemon ask.

"Hmm…It's some sort of internal damage, most definitely. From what you told me the butler - what was his name?"

"Seppings."

"Well, from what Mr. Seppings told you about the young chap here having trouble with his left arm and shoulder, I'm guessing the spleen."

"Ruptured, do you think?"

"That would be my guess. The low blood pressure bears it out. The blood pressure explains the dizziness and lightheadedness as well."

"Should we stabilize him and have him taken to Worcester?" Doctor Lemon inquired.

"No, I don't think we should wait on things. But no bother, a bit of general surgery will be just the topper for this excursion! If you don't mind my assisting, that is, Lemon old man?"

"You'll stay then, Doctor Richardson?"

"Of course I will!" he said. "Wouldn't dream of deserting the man who arranged this charming holiday for me. I've not had as delightful an outing as this in years!"

I was extraordinarily puzzled. What did he mean Mr. Wooster had arranged his holiday? I knew from the porter's words that my master had been to the hospital at some point in the last thirty-six hours, but had he been injured enough to need a specialist, surely they would not have let him leave?

"I must say, I'm a bit relieved. Something as delicate as a splenectomy is a bit out of my line."

"Well, I haven't done one for a few years, but it's straightforward enough when you get right down to it. Besides, with the incomparable Philpot at our side, how can we not prevail?"

"She's just been through one gruelling surgery yesterday, are you sure she'll be up for it?" Doctor Lemon teased.

"Up for it? My good man! What utter tosh and nonsense! That warrior? That veritable Bodicea? Not up for it? Ridiculous! Why, I've only worked with her once, but I don't mean to ever work without her again. As soon as we've set this poor young chap to rights, I intend on spiriting her away to my surgery in Birmingham."

Doctor Lemon actually laughed. "You do, and you'll have the entire population of the surrounding countryside coming after you."

"I would expect nothing less for such of jewel!" Doctor Richardson asserted. I saw him stick his head out of the door at the opposite end of the room. "Philpot!" he bellowed down the corridor, "Where are you, my invaluable darling?"

"I'm am putting the Davies boy down for his nap and I will thank you very much not disturb every patient and visitor in this hospital with your dramatics, Doctor Richardson," the nurse reprimanded him as she came in.

"Ah, my dear Philpot, you are the voice of sense and compassion as always. I bow to your excellent judgement."

Nurse Philpot rolled her eyes, but I noticed she was smiling. "As always… as if the great ham hasn't known me but a day."

"Be that as it may, Philpot, my love, we shall need you to ready surgery. It seems that the young chap here came a cropper the other night after all, and Doctor Lemon and I will need your inestimable services once more as scrub nurse."

"Doctor Richardson, the surgery is _always_ ready. I do not leave things in disarray after a procedure only to have to rush through the cleaning the next time the room is needed! As for everything else, the instruments are already laid out, there are several pints matching Mr. Wooster's blood type already there and I've arranged for Nurse Elliot to watch the other patients. All I'm waiting for is for you two layabouts to pull your thumbs out and get the young lad to the surgery."

"You are a prize, Philpot! An absolute prize! Well, you heard the woman, Lemon. Let us see to this young man."

I moved quickly from the door and down the corridor as the two doctors and Nurse Philpot exited at this end, along with the porters who wheeled the gurney out of the room and around the corner. I believe Nurse Philpot guessed what I had been up to, but I doubt she would have said anything even if Mrs. Travers had not chosen that moment to arrive.

"Ruby?" Mrs. Travers spoke directly to Nurse Philpot, no doubt discerning Mr. Wooster was unconscious and that the doctors were already dealing with him.

Nurse Philpot let the doctors take Mr. Wooster and spared a moment for Mrs. Travers. "He needs surgery, Dahlia, but it will be all right."

"Surgery? Whatever for? What has happened to him?"

"I can't go into that now, dear. They need me."

Mrs. Travers straightened, gathering herself together. "No, no, of course not. I understand. I mustn't delay you. But I can leave it in your hands then, Ruby, dear?"

"You may put your trust in me, Dahlia. Those two overpaid barbers aren't half as foolish as they look, but I'll keep them in line in any case. Young Bertram will be a blot upon the landscape again within a fortnight."

"Good old Philpot!" Mrs. Travers said gratefully, clasping the nurse's hands briefly to her, before letting her rush off and join the doctors with Mr. Wooster.

Mrs. Travers turned to me. Her eyes were dry, but there was a tightness along the jaw that told me she was struggling to remain composed. I expected her to demand what happened, or even to ask me how I was holding up, but all she said was, "He looked so much like Frederick, you see. Just then, I mean. He looked so much like my brother, lying there after... "

She turned from me and proceeded to go to the small parlour where Mr. Seppings was, to await the rest of the family.

I, on the other hand, decided to search out the young porter.

-x-

Nurse Philpot, having served the surrounding countryside long before it gained a doctor, let alone a hospital, was such an established and revered figure that the worship of the villagers forbade them from saying anything about her youngest son other than "he'll never make a doctor". Simply put, the poor young man was slightly simple. However, as he was cheerful and obliging and as his limitations did not seem to bother him, it seems a small point.

Unless of course, he cannot stop using a name that makes you sick with shame.

"Oh, Mr. Nixon, yes, he's nice. He's a very nice man," young Philpot stated, as he ate the sandwich I made for him in the kitchen.

"Yes, he most certainly is. Can you tell me when you met him?"

"At night. I like the night time. The hospital is very peaceful when everyone is asleep. It's not so scary then."

"At night? Not yesterday?"

"Oh yes, he was here yesterday as well. Mr. Nixon and Doctor Lemon talked for hours and hours and were ringing people on the telephone all afternoon."

"Ringing people on the telephone? Does that mean they were in Doctor Lemon's office and not an examining room?"

"Yes, that's right."

"So Mr. Wooster had not come to see Doctor Lemon in a professional capacity?"

"Pardon me?"

"I mean to say, Mr. Wooster was not here because he was hurt or ill and wanted Doctor Lemon to look at him?"

"What? Mr. Nixon? No, he wasn't hurt."

"What about when you met him during the night? I take it that it was the night before last?" He nodded happily, his mouth full of cold chicken. "Was he injured then?"

Young Philpot shook his head strenuously. "No, he wasn't hurt then neither, but Doctor Lemon did look at his chest. There weren't nothing wrong, though. Just a scrape or two."

I considered this as I refreshed the young man's tea. It was quite possible Mr. Wooster had only suffered slight damage at the time, but the injury had been aggravated of the intervening day and a half to the point of some sort of rupture had occurred. But it was equally possible, if it was the spleen, that the rupture had happened then and simply not been noticed. I had heard of such things before; some people had been known to suffer days or even weeks before the pain asserted itself, and on the night in question, when the doctor examined Mr. Wooster, likely even the surface bruises wouldn't have had time to form.

Turning to young Philpot, who was obliviously enjoying a plate of biscuits which I had found in one of the cupboards, I asked him, "Why then was Mr. Wooster here? Did he _think _he was hurt?"

"No, no, Mr. Nixon is the one what brought in Mrs. Davies and her little'uns. You know, after she hit him with her car."


	8. Chapter 8

_**Chapter 8**_

Of all the quotations I had glibly offered up to my master over the years, none so pierced my being or reverberated through my conscience as a line I never had occasion to say to him: "There smites nothing so sharp, nor smelleth so sour as shame." (1) For he, as a good man, had never needed to hear it.

I, however, during that endless grey afternoon of waiting, felt it should be forever burned on my soul.

An auto accident. Why had I not seen it? Even after hearing the name Nixon and understanding the implications of the story, I had not pictured anything such as that. A simple fall, a slip in the mud, a collision in the dark of some sort, but nothing so harrowing.

Eventually, the entire story came out. Young Philpot, not noticing the horror and internal recrimination his words had produced, chattered on, enabling me to piece together most of the events of that night.

Mr. Wooster had arrived at the hospital at roughly 1:00 that morning - apparently after having driven there in the Davies' automobile, despite its smashed bonnet - and rushed in frantically, carrying an unconscious infant in his arms. Rousing the night porters with word of Mrs. Davies, injured and still in the auto, he proceeded to call wildly for a doctor in such loud tones that he woke the hospital's only patient - a petulant man named Mr. Collins who had sustained a broken foot after a fall on the steps of the village hall and who proceeded to add to the ruckus by complaining about being awoken so rudely by deranged hooligans.

Ignoring the obstreperous Mr. Collins, the duty nurse was instantly on hand, but Mr. Wooster, panicked and guilt-ridden, continued to cling desperately to the child and refused to turn him over to anyone less than a doctor. It wasn't until Nurse Philpot - who never seems to leave the hospital from what I can see - arrived on the scene and was able to soothe him enough that they were able to take the boy from him.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Davies and her daughter Violet were brought in. Mrs. Davies was stunned and bleeding from a gash on her forehead, but thankfully her injuries were not serious. And little Violet had thankfully escaped without so much as a scratch.

Mr. Wooster, soaked through and no doubt half in shock, had then refused to leave until the extent of William Davies' condition was known. As William and his mother were being seen to, my master waited in the same room his family were now gathered in waiting for word on him, and tried to console the shaken little girl. She, crying pitifully, had only answered his awkward attempts at comfort by shouting, "You made Mummy crash!"

I can only imagine how my poor master must have taken that.

Philpot, not on duty but like his mother seemingly always present, had waited with the two and was there when Doctor Lemon had come to talk to Mr. Wooster nearly an hour later. It was while they spoke that the doctor had examined my master and the name Nixon had come out.

"Doctor Lemon always asks them their names," Philpot explained. "I don't know why, he knows everybody in the village, after all. You'd think he'd recognize them. But any road, that's when Mr. Nixon said his name, only he did say it all queer-like."

"How so?"

"He laughed sort of, but it was like he were 'bout to cry as well. He said, 'It's Nixon, apparently.' Just like that. A sort of chokey sound. Now why would he say that? _Apparently_, I mean. Seems a funny sort of thing to say."

"The name Nixon has to do with a bad jest someone made at his expense." _And how bitter a blow it must have struck him then,_ I thought.

"Oh. Is that way he said his name was something different later on?"

"Quite likely. He must have noticed that you had taken him at his word and he did not wish you to labour under a misapprehension."

"Pardon me?"

"He did not want to lie to you."

"Oh."

"But you said this was later on - when exactly, if I may ask?"

"When I drove him home. Mother said he couldn't walk all that way. Not shaken up like he was."

"I see. What time was this?"

"Don't know. But there was some sort of party going on when we got there. You could see the lights in the window and hear folks laughing and laughing! Oh, it was a thing to hear!"

_Oh God, no._

"It were a shame Mr. Nixon was still in them wet clothes and no state for it, for it sounded like a right smasher!"

Mr. Seppings and Frederick had found him sitting in the garden when the returned from Kingham Manor, but that had been hours later. Had Mr. Wooster been there all that time? Why would he have not come in out of the rain?

One single reason occurred to me: he, wounded and perhaps in a more vulnerable state than he had ever been before in his life, had returned home in need of solace and care, only to find all those whom he might have counted on glorying in his misfortune. And in his pain, he had not been able to face us.

What had I done?

Sitting at the table, I hid my face in my hands and was unable to speak for a very long time.

-x-

A servant's life is one of waiting. It is also one of carrying on no matter how much turmoil you may be in. And never did I struggle with either task more than I did that terrible day.

Thinking it was high time I remembered my duties, I returned to the room where Mr. Wooster's relatives waited (Mrs. Travers having been joined by Miss Angela and young Mr. Glossop by this point), and took my place next to Mr. Seppings and waited to be of service.

However, as one of the porters had taken on the task on continually supplying tea, there was little for me to do and I was left to my own reflections. As I regarded the uncharacteristically silent women before me, and the helplessly fumbling attempts at comfort Mr. Glossop offered, my stricken mind threw my own callous words from that night back to me.

"_Nicholls and Jackson set out to ride to Brighton on a tandem bicycle, and were so unfortunate as to come into collision with a brewer's van." (2)  
_

Mr. Wooster had already been anxious before he set out. I knew he did not like my seeing it, but the signs of his agitation were not difficult to spot, try though he did to hide them behind resentment and annoyance. No, his dislike of the countryside and the nerve-wracking effect of the fire bell on his system were known to me, and yet I had had no compunction at adding to his uneasiness with a morbid story.

"_And when the rescue party arrived on the scene of the accident, it was discovered that they had been hurled together with such force that it was impossible to sort them out at all adequately."_

Arrogantly sending him out into the dark on a useless errand without an ounce of forethought as to his safety had not been enough. Secretly laughing at what I had considered his foolish worries over not having a lamp had not been enough. No, it had then been necessary for me to then distract him further by mocking him with what turned out to be a cruelly prescient jest.

"_The keenest eye could not discern which portion of the fragments was Nicholls and which Jackson. So they collected as much as the could, and called it Nixon."_

Was this what had done it? Between his fears and his anger at the prank I had played, had I put him in such a state that he had not noticed the automobile until it was too late? Had this added agitation blunted his reactions and not allowed him to turn in time?

"_I remember laughing very much at that story when I was a child, sir."_

I could not get around the fact that in relating this dreadful story to him, especially in light of my full awareness of how upset he already was, I had purposely set out to punish him. It was not merely a case of being thoughtless, or even arrogantly negligent, but a deliberate act of inflicting harm. I had punished my master, and I knew not why. And then I had laughed.

And now four innocent people, not just one, were suffering because of me.

I reasoned that the boy was (or would be) well. Mr. Seppings had said that Mr. Wooster had been greatly relieved by a phone call he received that morning and it was not hard to surmise that it had been good news about little William, an idea also supported by the attitude of the doctors towards the operation they had been discussing when I had been eavesdropping on their conversation.

However, that did not change anything. While I did not know the reason Mrs. Davies would have been out at that time of night with her children, the fact is she had been and I had not accounted for it before foolishly sending my master out on a dark night without a lamp. In doing so, I had unconscionably put not only him at unnecessary risk, but anyone else on the road as well. And, as a result, three people had been injured and a young girl needlessly traumatized. On top of which, there was also the terror Mrs. Davies had been forced to undergo in worry for her child and the emotional suffering my master had endured for the last two days to add to the list of my crimes.

As the hours dragged on, Mr. Fink-Nottle and Miss Bassett arrived, and then finally Mr. Travers, who had rushed home the minute someone in Birmingham had managed to track him down and give him the news. He and his wife did not embrace, or make a scene - Mrs. Travers not being one to demonstrate fear by any sort of emotional display - but the wordless way in which he instantly took her hand and the white-knuckled way she held it told all. I could not help but look away.

_No, not just four people_, I realized.

-x-

It was not until after tea-time that Doctor Lemon came in and asked for Mr. and Mrs. Travers to accompany him. At their departure I had automatically taken a step forward, thinking to follow, for surely I should be included in any discussion about my master? I hurriedly stepped back with burning embarrassment for having forgotten my place and prayed no one had noticed.

Eventually, after a sickening age had passed, the Travers returned to give us the news. The operation had been a success and Mr. Wooster would be all right. However, my profound, and even dizzying, relief did not stop me from noticing the slight hesitation still present in Mrs. Travers' eye. What was she not telling us, and would I be informed, or would I be left to hear as gossip from other servants, as if I had no personal interest?

For it was then - as I looked on at the various members of the Travers family and Mr. Wooster's assorted acquaintances embracing each other, and heard Mr. Glossop bluffly declaring to the room at large that he had known all along everything would turn out well - that the true nature of my position was brought home to me. The scene before me was not quite a celebratory one, but it was a communion of shared release to which, as nothing but a servant, I was a lone outsider. Perhaps if Mr. Seppings had not been sent to fetch some sandwiches, he would have been relieved enough to forget his anger towards me and say a few words in the spirit of the moment.

Or perhaps not.

As it was however, I was left to watch from the shadows. Even when Miss Travers, her eyes sparkling with tears, laughed and said, "Isn't it wonderful, Jeeves?", it was borne into me that I was an afterthought; that where it concerned a man I knew more fully than any of them, my opinion would never be sought, my wishes never considered, and even my right to worry for him only granted at the whim of an indulgent family. And when we all left to return to home, without one suggestion that I might be allowed to see Mr. Wooster before we did, the unexpected bitterness I felt at that moment was hardly worthy of the wise servant I had always thought myself to be.

But the feeling was quickly quashed by guilt, for even if my position had been a different one, how could I think I deserved anything more after what I had done?

* * *

_(1) William Langland, "Piers Plowman"_

_(2) All quotes in italics are directly from "Right Ho, Jeeves". This also includes the one in the last chapter. _


	9. Chapter 9

_**Chapter 9**_

I was not prepared for my first sight of Mr. Wooster in his hospital bed to affect me as it did.

Why it should be so, I do not know. He did not appear gravely injured. There were no casts on his limbs and the bandages that I knew must wrap his torso were hidden by his nightwear and the blankets. There was no cough to be heard, nor were his cheeks flushed with fever. No, I had seen him in more obvious physical discomfort several times before during our association, and yet…

And yet there was something about his face as he slept that marked this occasion as being far more serious. A fancy perhaps, whether born by guilt or simply the knowledge that his life had been in the balance, but to me there was some indefinable quality to his look that frightened me, and drove home the fact that this had been a much more serious incident than anything he had been stricken with before. An added strain about his features, an expression of despair enhanced by the dark circles under his eyes, a fragility displayed in the paleness of his complexion - whatever it was, it seemed to hit me almost as a hard blow to the chest.

I moved softly to his side and placed my hand lightly atop his, as if I was merely going to awaken him. "Oh, sir," was all I could say. I wished to apologise, but it was so very difficult to even know where to begin. All I could feel was this overwhelming wash of pity and sorrow; I believe I could have wept at that moment and that brought with it a tremendous realization:

His pain caused me pain.

Guilt was not a surprise; while I was just beginning to see how manipulative and unfeeling I could be, I did not think myself a monster. I knew I _was_ capable of remorse, and given the circumstances, feeling it was only a natural occurrence. I had hurt someone, and regretted it deeply. It was also only natural to feel it more so for a person I knew, and one whom I saw as an innocent victim. But this was a revelation! It _hurt_ me to see him like this. It was as simple and as shocking and as brutal as that.

The force of this discovery caused me to unthinkingly squeeze the hand I held in mine, which brought me back to myself. It felt a little chilled to me, and so I quickly let go in order to adjust the blankets more completely around him. He didn't stir; so deeply asleep as he was, I think I could have picked him up and carried him out of the room without his breathing changing for a second.

Then, as quietly as I could, I moved a nearby chair to his bedside and sat down to watch the rain outside, waiting for the moment when he would need me.

-x-

"I thought this would be where I would find you," Mrs. Travers said in a quiet voice. (Well, as quiet a voice as I had ever heard from her.)

I stood. I had been aware of her approach for some minutes - the sound of her shoes on the floor of the hospital was vastly different from that of the nurses - but I had been reluctant to cease my contemplation by Mr. Wooster's side until I absolutely had to. "Can I assist you in any way, Madam?"

I removed myself as she made her way over to the bed. From the just inside the door, I watched as she brushed his hair back and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead. "Poor blot," she said. "Well, never you mind - we'll see you well again." Then she straightened and gestured to me to precede her out of the room.

"Will you come with me, Jeeves. I wish to talk to you," she said once we were in the corridor. She lead me to the old servant's parlour, where we had all gathered the day before, and sat at one end of the chesterfield under the window. She motioned for me to sit at the other end. I hesitated, always disapproving of the idea of sitting in the presence of those not of my class, but the quick, determined frown she gave let me know that it would not be appreciated if I refused.

"Jeeves," she began, her usual geniality swiftly returning to her tone, "I understand that there has been some sort of… disharmony that has cropped up in the relationship between you and my nephew. Whatever it is, I am here to ask you to forgive him. I know he can be a silly ass, but he means - "

I was momentarily speechless. She had so "got the wrong end of the stick", as my master might say, that my thoughts stumbled one over another in my attempts to know where to begin in explaining the matter. Finally I looked down, unable to meet her eyes. "I am afraid, Mrs. Travers," I said, interrupting, "that it is not a matter of _my _forgiving _him_, but of _his_ forgiving _me_."

She regarded me quizzically. "Jeeves?"

I took a deep breath and slowly began to relate the entire narrative. How pulling the fire bell had been my idea, how I had sent Mr. Wooster out without a lamp but with a cruel joke in his ear, what I knew of the accident afterwards and how Mr. Wooster had apparently arranged for presence of Doctor Richardson to save the little Davies boy. I even told her of unwitting disclosure of my part in the affair of the speech at the girl's school, and how Mr. Wooster had reacted to this latest example of my machinations.

When I finished, I heard her sigh. "Oh, my dear Jeeves, that does complicate things, doesn't it? I wish I could be angry, but when I consider my own behaviour towards Bertie over the last few days… well, it would be unbearably hypocritical for me to start shouting at you, to say the least."

"Madam?"

Now she could not look at me. I followed the line of her gaze out the rain spattered window, but was unaware of what she saw. "I told him I wished he would drown himself in the pond, Jeeves."

"Madam, I hardly think - "

She waved off my feeble attempt at comfort. "I know, I know. Even the young blot wouldn't be silly enough to take me at my word. But, given all that has happened, I most certainly regret saying such a thing now. Especially when I consider that he only came down to Brinkley for me. And that, while he might not have known the full details of your scheme, in the end he still put himself in your hands in order to fish all the rest of us out of the soup."

Hearing her sound so much like my master at that moment was both comforting and very distressing.

"In any case, Jeeves, it is what Bertie needs that is paramount at the moment. Which is why I wished to speak with you. Your recent actions may have been questionable, but deep down I feel that you are fond of the young hound." She locked her eyes on mine. "I trust that is so?"

"Yes, madam. I am most fond of Mr. Wooster."

"Good. He's going to need someone like you to be close by, Jeeves."

"I am afraid I don't understand, madam."

"It has to do with what the doctors informed Mr. Travers and me of yesterday. Bertie's health may not be completely up to snuff from now on. Apparently the spleen is quite an important part of something called the 'immune system'. It was all frightfully medical, but the gist of it was that Bertie may get sick more easily now. Make no mistake, he'll still be able to live a normal life; don't worry that I'm asking you to sacrifice yourself to taking care of a proper invalid, Jeeves. It is simply that he must be much more careful now. He must avoid any exposure to illness, even minor colds, because he'll catch them more easily, and if he does, there will be a stronger likelihood of them becoming more serious. At the very least, he'll have a more difficult time fighting them off. The same holds true for any cuts or scrapes - they must be taken care of immediately because of the risk of infection."

"That is why I wish for you to stay with him, Jeeves," she went on. "You've always been so vigilant and so capable, I know you'll watch him much more carefully than some strange servant would. I know can trust you completely to take the proper precautions and care for him."

Unfortunately, she then added, "Of course, all of this is contingent of his not sacking you."

"Yes, madam, that is the proverbial fly in the ointment." It was an understatement of monumental proportions.

"Well, we'll work it out. I'm certain we can talk him round and make him see sense. You just think about what I said and let me know how you feel," she told me, and then she patted my hand, rose to her feet and calmly left to have her visit with Mr. Wooster.

I, however, was left in a quandary. This new information not only horrified me and brought on a new wave of remorse, it also forced me to re-think a resolution I had made only the night before.

After the party's return to Brinkley the previous evening, my hours had been filled by serving drinks and a light repast to the group, all of whom were too agitated by the day's events to think of retiring, and I was forced to endure a tailor-made hell as I was made to listen to the dozens of warm reminiscences of the wonderful man I had nearly killed. Therefore, it was in an exhausted and severely dispirited state of mind that I retired for the evening, and in this mood, sleep was chased away by a whirl of defeatist thoughts.

My first decision was that I should immediately give my notice to Mr. Wooster and spare him the necessity of dismissing me. It seemed petty to force him into the role of the hard master after all he had been through. My resignation would also be my way of acknowledging that I had wronged him terribly.

However, I then considered that Mr. Wooster might need to, and certainly had a right to, express his anger, and so, in allowing him to dismiss me himself, I would be accepting nothing but my due punishment.

As I pondered the matter further though, I realized that leaving at all was perhaps a cowardly response. Toting up the ledger of all I had to feel guilty for, I recollected my master's own reactions to the current situation. I had no doubt that he blamed himself for the accident, but still, _he_ had not run away. No, he called his solicitor, Mr. Henshaw, and arranged for him to not only track down the specialist the boy needed, but to arrange it with his bankers to pay for the entire operation as well. When he felt he had destroyed the gardener's bicycle, he had replaced it. (I had checked with Mrs. Dodd that very evening; it was being delivered at the end of the week.) I had no doubt that if I asked, I would find that he had even arranged for the Davies' auto to be repaired.

The point was, he had not abandoned the Davies family after delivering some worthless apology. He had stayed and done everything in his power to amend the situation. So for me to do less would be the act of an abominable cad.

Therefore I was determined to do my utmost to persuade him to let me stay on. For only by remaining with him would I have the opportunity to fully make it up to him. But I was also determined that I would never manipulate him again. Persuade him, yes. Even beg. But not trick, not coerce by some scheme.

But now the issue was more dire. While I did not have the same faith as Mrs. Travers that I had always cared for him properly, the very picture of my master having to rely on some new servant, some _stranger_, to monitor something so vital to his wellbeing as his health, made me sick to my very soul. I _could not _allow it!

On the other hand, how could I break my own vow? And if I did, and Mr. Wooster found out, would not that manipulation hurt him even more? I was at a loss in a way that I had never been before in my life. I had to talk him into keeping me on with only my apology, but what could I possibly say that would convince him?

-x-

I had waited for hours and now I watched anxiously as he begin to stir. I saw him open his eyes and regard me sharply.

"Sir, I fear I have made an incalculable mistake."


	10. Chapter 10

_**Chapter 10**_

Though in my pride I have always struggled against the idea as being defeatist and therefore an obstacle to success in one's endeavours, the simple fact which not even I can avoid, is that there come times in one's life when there are no completely positive solutions.

As a servant, I have of course proffered many an apology for a diverse number of things over the course of my career - for not having run the bath at the right temperature, for not buying the correct brand of tea cakes, and occasionally, for something as simple as not having quite the right expression on my face when one of my employers was experiencing a moment of pique. In any case, all were trivial expressions. Flowing out of my mouth with as little concern behind them as my next breath, they were meaningless noises which served as nothing more than a spot of oil to keep the daily interchange between master and servant running smoothly forward. But I had never begged for forgiveness before. Not from anyone, let alone an employer. I had never been in a position before where I had felt I needed to, and even if I had, I would still have declined. I would have considered it intolerable to lower myself that way.

Therefore, I found myself in an entirely new situation when I realized how much I _did_ wish to apologise to Mr. Wooster, and how desperately I wanted his forgiveness. So desperately perhaps, that I did not see how I was potentially taking advantage of him, by pushing him to assuage my guilt immediately, when he himself was in no state to argue.

However, as I stated earlier, there are times when no clear-cut answer exists. For what else could I do but apologize at the earliest opportunity? Would he have felt better if I had remained quiet and behaved as if there was nothing to apologise for? As if his being seriously injured was a matter of no consequence?

No, if I were afforded the chance to visit the moment again, there would still be nothing else I could, or would wish to do differently. Hopefully, however, I would be a little less blind.

-x-

"A mistake, Jeeves?" Mr. Wooster asked, and I was distressed to hear his voice break. "Is that what you call it?"

"Sir, please - "

Still lying in his sickbed, he turned his face from me, but whether in disgust or to hide the covert swipe of his hand at his eyes, I could not tell. "Nothing more than a strategic miscalculation, was that it?" he demanded ruefully.

"Sir, no! Please believe me, I meant the word 'mistake' as a terrible wrong - an action I regret utterly and would give nothing more than to take back. Not as some mere unfortunate happenstance, some…" I found myself uncharacteristically fumbling for the right phrase, "some minor _misstep_ that merely rendered my plot less effective."

He made no response.

"Sir, I know I have hurt you. I have hurt you in so many ways that they are impossible to count. I don't even know where to begin. I find myself at a loss for words."

Still looking away, he let out a short, harsh, bitter laugh. "_You_, Jeeves? _You_ who can quote every literary and philosophical chappie known to the bally human race? Do you honestly expect me to believe that?"

He was right. After playing the smugly superior, all-knowing dispenser of proverbs for so long, what did it say about me that I could not even apologise properly?

"Sir," I said as ardently as I could, "please know that it was never my intention that you should be hurt. If you believe nothing else I say, please, please believe that. My plan was thoughtless, unconscionably cruel and foolishly arrogant, but its only goal was to resolve the difficulties of your friends and relations. Nothing more. That you should have been so gravely hurt shames me, but please trust me when I say that it was an accident."

After some moments, I heard him give out a shuddery breath. "I suppose it would be ungrateful to blame you for only doing something I asked you to do," he said tiredly.

"Sir?"

"I mean, if a chap forces another chap into the role of general, then the least the first chap can do is play the good soldier and let himself be lead," he explained, and I was so relieved to hear words that sounded like an acceptance of my apology that at the time I did not fully note the flatness with which they were delivered.

"Then, sir, I may remain in your service?" I asked, and then, like a child (though hopefully not as obvious), I held my breath while I anxiously awaited what he would say.

He finally turned to look at me and I could see how conflicted he was. "Jeeves… I don't….I mean, I'm not certain I can… Oh, why do you have to do this to me now!"

"Forgive me, sir. You must be exhausted. And of course you need some time to consider the matter. I can only hope that you will let me attend you until you come to a decision."

"Jeeves…"

"Please sir," I entreated, "allow me to do my best to repair the damage I have done. Or at least to atone for it in some small way."

His shoulders slumped. "All right," he agreed reluctantly, and, though I am horrified to say it, there was the tiniest spark of satisfaction in my breast that I had won out once again. But I quickly soothed my conscience with the thought that it was of no consequence, that the important thing was that I was free to stay by his side in order to recompense him for all I had wrought.

-x-

As the days went on, I focused on this aim most assiduously and came up with many plans, but actually achieved very little.

There were minor distractions, such as gaining the hospital's permission to stay by Mr. Wooster's side. Once he was out of immediate danger, even his family was expected to abide by the stringent visiting hours which governed the establishment (though I sincerely doubted Mrs. Travers would consider any such rule as applying to _her), _but servants could hardly expect to claim even that much privilege. To many, our simply requesting such a thing in the first place would be seen as overstepping one's station to a breathtaking degree.

On the other hand, a valet (or lady's maid) was a special case. One of the benefits of class and wealth is the expectation of greater comforts, and one of those is the presence of a personal servant to see to your needs. Seen in that light, my attending Mr. Wooster was equivalent to his being allowed to have his favourite dressing-gown or use of the warm slippers Miss Angela had bought for him as a get-well gift. The hospital viewed it somewhat differently, but as they were also used to dealing with wealthy potential patrons, it did not take undue effort on the part of Mrs. Travers to talk them round, with the proviso I left the nursing to the staff and did not get in the way.

However, the greater difficulty was in fact finding something I could actually _do_ for Mr. Wooster. Bathing and his other attendant physical needs were seen to by the nursing staff. I was allowed to shave him and brush his hair, but once he regained enough strength to sit up and hold the razor or brush for the time required without his hand shaking, Mr. Wooster insisted on doing these tasks himself, leaving me nothing to do but to warm the water and fetch the basin. His wardrobe needed no attention, other than seeing his pyjamas were cleaned and pressed. His meals were provided by the hospital, and even if they were not, his appetite had all but disappeared. He would not even let me read out loud to him, despite the fact that he could not do it himself without tiring after more than two or three pages.

So my struggle became less of finding some grand gesture to make things up to Mr. Wooster, and more of simply finding enough tasks to fill the day. I would walk beside him when Doctor Lemon made him pace the halls for exercise, offer to fetch him magazines or books or newspapers when he looked bored, ask him endlessly if he would like to play cards or checkers, want to know if he needed a glass of water or a cup of tea, suggest excursions outside with me pushing him in a wheelchair around the hospital grounds - anything! Never was I so frustrated or ill at ease with one of my employers, let alone this one. By the end of his stay, I think I would have gladly volunteered to scrub all the floors in the hospital just to escape the long, dragging hours.

And to forget that my master no longer talked to me, and looked at me only when he couldn't avoid it.

-x-

Mr. Wooster's stay in hospital lasted nearly a fortnight, and perhaps the only good thing that can be said about that time is that we were spared the presence of Mrs. Spenser-Gregson due to her being in South Africa, seeing to the extrication of Mr. Claude and Mr. Eustace Wooster from the arms of the law. (Never did I think the wilder side of Mr. Wooster's cousins would prove to be a convenience instead of otherwise!) However, even this fortunate circumstance was only temporary - the formidable lady was on her way home and positively chomping at the bit to find Mr. Wooster a wife who 'would break him of this abominable frivolity'. In her words, she would see to it that he would never pull a fire-bell again, even if it meant breaking all of his fingers in order to assure it.

Friends of Mr. Wooster, familiar with this typical predicament of his, namely familial expectations allied with the "Code of the Woosters" versus his own personal wishes, may be forgiven for supposing that this was the opportunity I was looking for. A quickly engineered plan to distract his aunt, or even better, to disenchant her with whatever unsuitable female she happened to be putting forward as a future spouse, was indeed my usual course of action. Even a dignified escape might have served, in normal circumstances, to elevate me once more in the eyes of my employer.

But things were not normal. For one thing, Mr. Wooster seemed completely unconcerned about the imminent arrival of Mrs. Spenser-Gregson.

Mrs. Travers, who generally gets on well with her sister (or at least better than everyone else in the Wooster or Travers families), was surprised to find herself arguing _against _her nephew over the plan to keep her sister away from Brinkley.

"Bertie, you fathead!" she implored. "You're not thinking straight! Can't you see I'm offering you sanctuary?"

"Thank you, Aunt Dahlia, but I am going back to London."

"The doctor says you can't."

"The doctor has no such thing," Mr. Wooster rebutted. "Old Lemon only said that I have to take it easy for another four weeks or so, and I can do that just as well at home as I can do it here."

"Stuff and nonsense! You're as white as the belly of a fish, thin as a weasel, and as wobbly on your feet as a newborn colt who's snorted down too much of the farmer's dandelion wine. Once Jeeves has gathered your things together, we'll have you released and Harris will drive the three of us back to Brinkley, where you will stay until the storm brewing from Agatha's direction blows over."

"I appreciate the offer, ancient ancestor of mine, though I do find it confusingly couched in clichés involving four-legged critters - "

"Fish don't have legs, you silly chump," Mrs. Travers pointed out.

"Be that as it may, I'm a grown man and I will recuperate where I wish."

"Be sensible, Bertie. You're in no shape to be dealing with Agatha and whatever block of ice she's dredged out of the bowels of her lady's club and insisting you walk down the aisle with. I agree you desperately need someone to take you in line, but I simply _will not _have you being pushed towards the cliff while your strength is down."

Though he winced at her choice of words, Mr. Wooster's eyes softened a little. "Thank you for that, old thing, but my mind is made up. Jeeves and I will return to Brinkley to retrieve our things and so that I might say goodbye to everyone, and then we're off."

"You're being selfish. Think of Anatole! He's been planning meals for days!"

Mr. Wooster grimaced. Food still had no appeal to him, a fact which I knew concerned Doctor Lemon. "Tempting, old thing," he lied, "but it does not sway me. My resolve is still steely and my plans still chipped into the old marble."

"But Brinkley has fresh air, sunshine, and cool, quiet vistas. What will you get in London? Air so thick and awful it will corrode your lungs and block out the sun. Grey skies, rain, grimy streets, and the heat! August is no month to be stuck in the metropolis. To any person of sense, it singularly fails to appeal."

"Your pastoral images are very poetical, aged A, but I intend on returning home."

Mrs. Travers harrumphed quite distinctly. "We'll discuss in more in the car," she said, as I finished packing up the last of my master's belongings which he had had at the hospital. This time, however, I could tell she had already lost. For whatever reason, Mr. Wooster was determined to return to London today and there was an implacability in his voice which I had never heard before. And, for my part, while I had many misgivings about Mr. Wooster pushing himself in his condition, I too was eager to return to London and resume my regular duties.

-x-

It was while Mr. Wooster was saying farewell to his friends that Mr. Seppings pulled me aside.

"A word of advice, Reginald," he said, surprising me by speaking to me at all. I had been ostracized by the staff generally since Mr. Wooster's collapse - "sent to Coventry" as the saying goes - and was not expecting anyone to see me off. "I think, my lad, that you had best sort out how you truly feel about being a servant before you let Mr. Wooster grow too attached to you again. For his sake and yours."

I blinked, utterly confused. "I am afraid I do not understand, Mr. Seppings."

"He did not ask you to solve everything this time, Reginald. He wanted save them himself, to be more than what they treat him as - which at this point seems to be for little else than being the agency which brings _you_ into their midst. But you could not have that. _You _had to be the one to solve everything. _You_ had to be the one they all lauded. So much so that you punished him for trying to take your place. Why do you think that is?"

My face burned with fury.

"I will tell you why. Because you cannot accept being inferior."

"Mr. Seppings, I must protest!"

"Be honest with yourself, Reginald. You cut Mr. Wooster out and then humiliated him to gain the upper hand. You make no bones about how you view your betters in your accounts in the Junior Ganymede Club book. 'Employers are like horses. The require managing.' (1) That is what you wrote, is it not? You did what you did because _you_ have to be the one to solve everything, because otherwise, if you did not, then you would be just a servant and you cannot abide that."

"Look at your previous employers," he continued. "Mr. Montague-Todd, for instance. What is it, the second or third year of his sentence now? You are a perceptive man, Reginald. You must have had an inkling as to what he was before you signed on. Why did you take the position? Because it allowed you to feel morally superior. And it also gave you a convenient excuse to leave when you grew tired of the situation."

"I left because I abhorred his behaviour," I argued, "as any right thinking man would have done. And I wished to leave quickly, before my employer's behaviour had a chance to reflect on myself. You have possessed the same position for your entire life. Perhaps you do not fully comprehend how quickly one's reputation can be tarnished by the people one works for."

"Perhaps. But what I see is a man who only agrees to work for either those he sees as dull-witted or morally bankrupt. Why would a so-called right-thinking man chose to do so? Because it allows him to secretly look down at them. Even your protestations at maintaining the proper feudal spirit and keeping to your place are your way of putting yourself above them. It is your reminder that they are behaving improperly, while _you_ are the one behaving more correctly and in a more disciplined fashion. That _you_ are the one comporting himself according to high-minded standards and they are not. It is one thing to behave like a servant, but another to be constantly drawing attention to it. That is the action of someone who thinks himself better than his employer."

"However," he went on before I could think of a coherent argument, "you have never before stayed in one place very long. Why is that? Is it because you might learn that you were wrong in your estimations of them? That they might be better than you thought them? That they might even be better than _you?__"_

"That is not true," I said, uncharateristically flustered, then realized what it had sounded like. "I mean, that is not why I ever left any of my previous positions."

"You have never served a truly good man like Mr. Wooster before and I think this new situation is beginning to bother you. I have seen your kind before. You like to see yourself as apart, too far above everyone to need a job. But now you are growing fond of him and that threatens the superior detachment you have always enjoyed."

"I don't have to take this."

"I do not say all this to be cruel, Reginald. Only to make you see. You are an exceedingly intelligent man, which is no crime, but ambition and pride do not always lend themselves well to a life in service. If you cannot overcome your resentment over serving those whom you see as less astute or worthy, then perhaps it would be best to choose a more suitable line of work."

Just then, Mr. Wooster and several of the others exited the house and Mr. Seppings and I instantly drew apart and schooled our expressions into the habitual servant's inscrutability. None of them noticed any tension in the air. Mr. Wooster declared himself ready to depart, and, as the luggage had already been loaded into the boot of the two-seater, there was one last round of handshakes between Mr. Wooster and his friends and then we were off.

I found I was very grateful to be the one driving on this particular trip. It kept my mind from dwelling on other things.

-x-

1) From "Bertie Changes His Mind".


	11. Chapter 11

_**Chapter 11**_

Over the course of my and Mr. Wooster's journey homeward, I cautioned myself many times not to expect that the return to our normal routine would in any way smooth over the current contretemps between us. But it is in human nature to hope, and therefore, when for the first day or so, Mr. Wooster's manner was not as cold and angry as I had feared, but neither as predictably familiar as I could have wished, I tried to reassure myself that the sheer normality of this reaction meant that all would eventually be well. After all, it was only to reasonable that Mr. Wooster be somewhat out of sorts following his ordeal, and so, if I could but accept this and be patient, things between us would naturally right themselves in time.

And if there was a growing seed of concern that we had not resolved the matter, well then what of it? Surely it was better to let things be than to risk his dismissing me, I told myself again and again, as I scrubbed the sink or ironed his clothes or did the marketing. Looking back, I marvel at how I could have missed the desperation in that inner voice, or even the implications of how often I had to ask the question.

But of course, there were other things to worry about.

Mr. Wooster's odd behaviour started the very evening after we arrived back at our flat in London. That afternoon had provided me with all of the distraction I could have wished, what with seeing to my masters tea, unpacking our bags, preparing dinner and putting the flat to rights after an absence of nearly three weeks. My master too was busy. After the rest which I had positively insisted on - no new hesitation or resolutions to show more deference were going to prevent my taking care of his health - he spent the evening writing numerous letters and telegrams. After going through the built-up correspondence, there were thank you letters to write to Doctors Lemon and Richardson, to Nurse Philpot and the other staff at the hospital, and to Mr. Seppings and the staff at Brinkley expressing his gratitude once again for the get well wishes they had sent him during his recovery. And, while his determination to tackle this chore so immediately upon our return surprised me, his sending them did not. The telegram, however, to Mrs. Gregson, inviting her to luncheon at the flat in three days hence, most assuredly did.

"Sir?" This was a woman my master had once climbed down a water pipe to avoid (at my suggestion, and I had a sudden chill at the thought of how easily he could have fallen) *, and therefore his initiating a meeting between them, especially in light of her current state of mind towards him, set off alarm bells in my mind. I waited, unable to decide whether with hope or dread, for him to explain whatever ill-judged plan he had concocted. But I was to be disappointed.

"Jeeves? Is there a problem?"

"No, sir. I was simply..." _Taken aback_, was what I wanted to say, but the new coolness between us made it suddenly awkward for me to even hint at there being anything amiss. "...wondering what you wished to be served."

He turned back to his correspondence. "I'm certain anything you come up with will be adequate, Jeeves."

"Very good, sir."

"That will be all, Jeeves."

"Very good, sir."

And so it went. My master's tone was distant, yet cordial, and any other servant in London would have thought nothing of it. Indeed, most would have undoubtedly been thankful for a master who was so unfailingly polite. It was only I, just now beginning to truly comprehend the unique quality of the relationship I had so far enjoyed with Mr. Wooster, who could spot the difference.

For instance, at dinner that night. The meal was a quiet affair, with Mr. Wooster eating with seeming contentment alone at the dining table. However, he did not chat about his plans for the next day, nor wonder out loud about what his friends at The Drones might have been up to in his long absence, nor even relate any anecdote from the letters he had received. His utterances were limited to requests for me to refresh his drink from time to time and a quick, perfunctory compliment on my cooking when he had finished. Afterwards, he listened to the wireless for some time and then read until nearly ten. He enjoyed both activities so far as I could tell, but expressed no excitement to me or voiced any comments about the plots of either as he invariably used to. Before turning in, he asked me to awaken him two hours earlier the next morning (very surprising, but I did not question it) and to lay out his navy suit the next morning.

"Very good, sir."

He did not wish me a good night.

On paper, it is easy to point out the strangeness of these instances in Mr. Wooster's general behaviour, but it is not so easy to properly convey my apprehensions or cause for compliant. There was nothing in his actions or tone I could find fault with, per say, but he was _different_. During those times when there had been moments of strain between us before, times when he had been 'pipped' at me, as he would say, he still... _saw me._ A slightly snappish retort might come with a look, to make sure I had caught the pique in his tone, or, conversely, if he was attempting to give me the cold shoulder, a badly hidden glance out of the corner of his eye - to ascertain if I was looking his way - would come first, so that I would be sure to spot his exaggerated turning away or tilt of his nose in the air, but he was still directing them _to me_. I had always been amused by these little tricks, assuming that my master had no talent for emotional subtlety and would always be as easy to read as an open book, but in all our time together, I had never stopped to consider that these traits were, in their way, an unconscious form of respect: the fact that he always reacted to me, even in irritation, indirectly acknowledged me as a person or even a friend.

Perhaps that is a distinction only another servant would understand. However, I believe that as I retired for the night, some part of me was already wishing that he _had_ taken me to task instead of treating me with that unfailing politeness which had made me feel as invisible to him as the hat stand.

But how does one actually complain of such a thing? I could see no way of putting the question to Mr. Wooster, other than to ask him if he was dissatisfied (a question to which I doubted I would get an honest answer), and I could hardly leave Mr. Wooster's service and return to the agency, explaining my departure with the reason that my master was too polite to work for. However, that was the very crux of the thing that had me lying in my bed and pondering the matter for hours. To make matters worse, there was no frost to his tone which might provide the slight comfort that this new trend was merely the result of a bad mood. For a mood would pass, but would this, I wondered.

I went to sleep that night trying to convince myself that one 'off' evening was not enough to warrant this kind of mental disturbance. Like a child's toy always bobbing upright no matter how hard it was knocked down, Mr. Wooster's indomitable good spirits always reasserted themselves in the end. He had already forgiven me enough to keep me on, after all. So was it was so unreasonable to think that his natural bright humour would return as his health improved?

But deep in my heart was an unspoken fear: that in Mr. Wooster's eyes, I had finally been reduced to a servant.

-x-

Mr. Wooster's odd behaviour continued the next day. Despite my concerns of the night before, I genuinely believed that when I woke him the two hours earlier he had requested, that he would grumble, decide against whatever newfound resolutions had taken hold of him, and quickly turn over and go back to sleep.

Instead, he rubbed his hands together in eager anticipation, and set to breakfast with a will. It was difficult to keep from raising a questioning eyebrow, but on the other hand, I was gratified to see him making the effort to eat as he normally did. It may not have been with his usual gusto, and he did leave some of it unfinished, but this was nothing that could not be explained by the lingering effects of his physical condition. He did not say anything to me other than a quick inquiry about the weather and a general compliment (such as a polite man would give anyone) about breakfast, but he was energetic and happy, reinforcing my idea that time was all that was needed to see things right between us. My previous nights worries dissipated like fog in the early morning sunshine.

Even much later, when he returned that afternoon with less bounce in his step and a smile that was apparently too heavy to reach his eyes, I was not unduly anxious. It was only when I relayed Mrs. Gregson's reply to his telegram and heard his reaction, that I experienced a renewal of my previous trepidation.

"Mrs. Gregson has stated she will be by tomorrow, rather than Thursday, sir."

"Ah, wonderful! I look forward to it," he said, his smile now larger and quite authentic.

__

Wonderful?

He looked up at me from his chair when I did not immediately respond. "I trust that does not interfere with your preparations, Jeeves?"

"No, sir." _Good heavens! What on Earth is he planning?_ I asked myself.

"That's fine, then," he said with complete unconcern, as he reached for a nearby book and commenced to read. When he noticed I had not moved, he asked, "Was there something else, Jeeves?"

"Mrs. Gregson stated that she will also be bringing a guest."

"That will be nice," he said. My eyes widened just the slightest. _Nice? "_The more the merrier," he added.

Quickly removing myself to the kitchen, I could not help but wonder then if he had perhaps struck his head during the accident and no one had since noticed. I did not credit the idea that he was oblivious to this ploy of Mrs. Gregson's - he would never have missed the implications of such a thing before - but neither could I believe he would make a scene in front of a stranger. In which case, my first thought - that his recent ordeal had finally provided him with the drive not to be manipulated by others and he was going to give his aunt a piece of his mind - no longer seemed plausible.

Did he therefore have some sort of plan to get out of it, in an attempt to demonstrate to me his independence, or was he seriously considering, for whatever reason, of finally acquiescing to his aunts wishes?

My word, he wouldn't go to such lengths simply to get me to resign, would he? Such reasoning seemed impossible to me, but I knew that that same Code of the Woosters which put him in the clutches of every marriage-minded young lady because it forbade him from hurting their feelings by turning them down, might also keep him from dismissing a servant without due consideration. Any impartial outsider might think that he had all the reason in the world, but by forgiving me, he likely considered the bicycle ride no longer enough. But, if he honestly wanted me gone, would he truly get engaged, or even married, because he saw it as the only honourable way of getting me to hand in my notice?

Or was it a test? Was I supposed to 'extricate him from the soup' to prove my loyalty? No, that could not be right. It was my machinations which had caused him so much heartache. I did not see him being eager to place himself in my hands for similar treatment so soon. Perhaps he wished me to get him out of it, but could not ask me outright due to his pride? No doubt even turning to me to request a quick escape to the Continent or to New York would be too much of a humiliating concession at the moment. But that did not work either - as my master, he could merely order me to arrange for a trip. For that matter, he could have stayed on at Brinkley Court under full protection of Mrs. Travers. If he had wished to avoid Mrs. Gregson (and the latest matrimonial prospect we both knew she would be dragging behind her), why had he insisted we return to London in the first place?

I paused in my scrubbing of the tea things. Was he perhaps seriously considering marriage this time? Surely not! While the idea that he might wish for companionship was not out of the question, I felt certain he would turn to one of the young ladies he already knew before he would accept a choice of his Aunt's. And sight unseen, at that.

No, I was over thinking the matter. The most logical explanation was that Mr. Wooster was trying to convince his aunt he had turned over a new and productive leaf, no doubt in hopes of forestalling her usual harangue. That must be it, I told myself and I turned back to the dishes, immensely relieved. Even the inevitable fiasco I sensed coming did not strike me with as much dread now that I believed I understood the situation.

-x-

The following morning began much as the previous one had. Mr. Wooster requested that I awaken him two hours before his usual time and went at breakfast with only slightly less determination than the day before, after which he bathed and asked me to lay out his grey suit and dark blue tie. At any other time, I would have rejoiced at his sudden turn towards the conservative in his dress, but now it was yet another peculiarity in his manner which I was at a loss to explain.

"Will you be going by your club this morning, sir?" I inquired, in what was hardly a subtle fishing for information.

"No, I don't think so, Jeeves. Why do you ask?"

"I believe Mr. Dawson had something in the line of new suits he wished to show you. I thought that if you were going in that direction - "

"Hmm, a stop by the tailor's... that's an excellent suggestion, Jeeves. However, I don't have time for it this morning. I have an appointment to get to if I want to be back in time for lunch with Aunt Agatha and her guest. By the way, did she mention the young lady's name, Jeeves?"

So he had guessed that much, I thought. "Yes, sir. The young lady's name is Miss Christine Hayter-Fortescue."

"Ah, that's a lovely name," he remarked, as I helped him on with his coat.

"Indeed, sir? I was under the impression you did not care for the name. Was there once not a particular friend of Miss Angelas who had - "

He froze, and I realized that, foolishly, I had expected nothing more than, "Nonsense, old thing. All in the past." Instead, he looked me coldly in the eyes.

"I don't believe I pay you to take liberties, Jeeves."

I felt a sudden strong flame of anger. He had not shouted, but his words had been a slap nonetheless. He had called me his friend before, but one mistake - a grave one, I do admit - but one mistake for which he had implied he had forgiven me, and now I was to be put in my place, was I?

"My apologies, sir," I said after a moment, and not entirely with proper submissiveness. "It will not happen again."

"See to it that it does not."

With that, he left.

* * *

* Jeeves and the Impending Doom


	12. Chapter 12

_**Chapter 12**_

As we were still in the sweltering depths of August (Mrs. Travers predictions of the weather having proved very accurate), I decided the repast I was to make for Mr. Wooster's luncheon should be a light one. My preparations included a cold consommé, cucumbers with salad cream, cutlets and Scotch woodcock as a savoury to finish, with a light sponge for dessert and iced lemon squash or tea to drink. None of this, I am sure, is of interest to the reader, except to demonstrate that my tasks on the morning in question were easily accomplished, therefore providing me with ample time for reflection.

Pity then, that I instead chose to use it to feed on my ill humour.

I have said before that my relationship to Mr. Wooster was a unique one, and I now found that, as such, it was the source of a great deal of unsettling confusion. It was just as well Mr. Wooster had gone out, otherwise the irritation that I vented on unfeeling pots and pans that morning might have been directed towards him, leading to a confrontation neither of us were clear-thinking enough to deal with at the moment.

For, though I can now see how wrong I was, I felt myself unfairly injured. It strikes me as strange that I did not consider for a moment how uncharacteristic my ire was, or ask myself why I was reacting so strongly at all, but at the time I was completely preoccupied by the low and vile deception I thought had been played on me. To profess friendship and admiration for someone for so long, only to show one's true colours at the first sign of trouble, smacked of the worst kind of manipulation. _Prime Minister indeed_, I fumed as I trimmed the cutlets, going back and forth as to whether my master was a pathetic fool or had been purposely being cruel for reasons of his own. I cursed him and his empty words, and berated him as nothing more than a shallow hypocrite. He had no understanding of how hard it was to cross the chasm between classes - he had no need to. It had nothing to do with merit and everything to do with luck. A man's rise in this world depended solely on the possession of one thing and one thing only: the right breeding. Schooling, connections, opportunities - all flowed from the fortunate chance of being born into the correct family.

His years of witless prattling therefore took on a new dimension. While his comments had always caused some minor pain, they had also brought pleasure. I had always considered his praise rather endearing, and believed his exaggerated faith in my intellect was what lead him to believe I could easily overcome the insurmountable obstacle of class bigotry. But that morning, all memories of his praise rankled. Calculated or from simple thoughtlessness, his words were a taunt, and resentment boiled within me.

And what was worse, I had believed him. Like the greenest page boy, I had let an employer's words win me over and suffice in the place of more tangible rewards. I felt an absolute imbecile. It was the only excuse I could find for how perturbed I was by a simple reprimand. No matter how much distance I had attempted to keep between us, how aloof I had always strived to be, his words had slipped past my defences and unconsciously fooled me into thinking something was not as it was. And that was perhaps the gravest hurt of all.

I had never partaken of spirits before noon, but I did so that day. Sitting at the kitchen table while waiting for the cutlets to cook, I indulged in several glasses of the sherry I kept in the cabinet over the breadbox. (It was my bottle; out of respect and a sense of propriety, I had only ever imbibed from Mr. Wooster's supply at his invitation and now, thinking of him as an odious cad, I had even less inclination to touch anything of his.) I had a developed-enough tolerance that the amount should not have altered my manner noticeably in any way, or so I thought, but I now wonder if events would have unfolded as they did if I had taken into account the added effects of my emotional state.

-x-

Miss Christine Hayter-Fortescue was short, curvaceous in a stocky way, and possessed of an impressive mane of thick blonde hair which I instinctively took her to be very vain about. Over the course of the meal, her manner would reveal her to be peremptory and forward to an almost vulgar degree, but must admit I was pre-disposed to dislike her from the very moment she thrust back her arm to hand me her coat without deigning to see if I had hold of it before she let go. Truth be told, the only good I will say of her even now was that her presence kept my master's aunt from releasing her considerable vitriol upon him (at least at first). And, as I was not in a kindly mood towards him myself, I was only grateful for this later.

Introductions were made, with Mrs. Gregson declaiming the merits of her latest find to Mr. Wooster.

"This is Miss Hayter-Fortescue, Bertie. She and I met on the boat from South Africa and her family was most gracious to me the entire voyage home. I am sure you and she will get along famously."

Mr. Wooster took the young lady's hand. "I am sure we will," he said, and something in his tone caused his relation to raise an eyebrow. "Please do come through, Miss Hayter-Fortescue," he continued, and guided both women confidently towards the sitting-room.

"No, no, please sit here," he went on, addressing the young lady. "It's quite the nicest chair I have, and it catches all the best breezes from the window."

"You are very kind, Mr. Wooster."

"Indeed, Bertie," I heard his aunt whisper to him as he guided her to a chair in turn, "If I had known being struck by a car would produce this effect, I would have run you over years ago." His smile tightened a touch bleakly at that, and, despite my resentment towards him, I sympathized. It was a comment in remarkably poor taste.

"I see you have a piano, Mr. Wooster," Miss Hayter-Fortescue said, as I served drinks. She sniffed at the proffered items on the tray and would not take one. I offered to fetch her some of the lemon-squash. When I did so, she took one sip and then ordered me to fetch another glass that was not so sweet.

"Yes, I've had it for - " Mr. Wooster started to reply after the drinks were sorted, but she interrupted.

"I can't say it does much for the room. It is very crowded in here with such a large object taking up so much space."

"Well, yes, but - "

"And the layout is so dreadfully organized! A woman would have done it so much better."

"You are so right, my dear," Mrs. Gregson agreed. "A woman's touch is indispensable in the proper organization of the home. Men simply have no idea."

"No, of course not," Miss Hayter-Fortescure announced as if that settled the matter. "How could they, the poor dears?" She turned to my master, who from the looks of him, was struggling manfully not to let his eyes protrude with terror. "Why ever did you put such a thing there, Mr. Wooster?"

"Where else could I have put it?" he asked.

"Don't be insolent, Bertie," his aunt hissed at him; softly however, so as not to 'queer the pitch' as I believe it's said.

My master's astonished and confused countenance was torn away from his aunt's gaze by the short dictator's answer.

"Why do you need such a thing here at all? A piano is for a man who has a house, not a bachelor with a small flat. It is kept in a music room to allow his children to practice on as part of their education, but for an unmarried gentleman it is nothing but a vulgar affectation. My word, it is not as if you play the thing!"

"Not play?" my master squeaked.

"Good heavens, you don't, do you? Oh, Mr. Wooster, I see I shall have to take you in hand! Playing the piano? That's not something a gentleman does. A gentleman _hires _entertainment for his guests, he doesn't provide it," the young lady explained as if she were speaking to a particularly dim child.

"I don't see what's wrong with - "

"Don't contradict your guests, Bertie. Show some manners," Mrs. Gregson ordered.

"But all of my friends - " he protested.

"Oh, no!" Miss Hayter-Fortescue broke in, "Please don't tell me you're one of these idle young men, pounding out crass dance-hall tunes to entertain a coterie of lounge lizards and brazen hussies, drinking all night and looking for their latest sheik? Why, the very idea makes me positively ill!"

I attempted not to smirk at Mr. Wooster's distress and thought to myself how surprised I would be if the party got through the luncheon before my master found some opportunity to dash into the kitchen and beg me to get him out of the soup.

"No, no," the young empress continued, "someday I shall have you play something dignified for me,"

_Like ringing a bell for a court jester, _I thought.

"...when you have purchased a proper house and a much finer instrument, but it simply will not do for you to be making a spectacle of yourself by playing cheap, mindless drivel for the average sot that passes for today's unmarried gentlemen."

His jaw clenched at her comments about a finer instrument - the piano had belonged to his father and was most cherished both for sentiment and quality - but he said nothing.

"Besides, you need to be outdoors more, I think. You are so dreadfully thin and pale."

"My nephew is lately recovering from an accident, Christine. He doesn't always look like this," Mrs. Gregson hastened to assure her.

"I should hope not," the young lady exclaimed, and regarded my master with an examining eye. "I do trust you're not one of these invalid types, Mr. Wooster."

"No, no," Mrs. Gregson consoled her. "Before the accident - which was no fault of his, I must say - Bertie has always enjoyed positively rude good health. Apart from a bout of the measles as a young child, he'd never been sick a day in his life before this." I wondered if Mrs. Gregson had bothered to speak with Mrs. Travers; Mr. Wooster's health in future was not likely to be as sound as perhaps the young lady demanded.

"That's good. I do so hate a weakling! There is no excuse for anyone to lie around and do nothing. That sort of languid self-absorption is positively repugnant to me and I am certain it leads to a moral degeneracy of the mind."

Mr. Wooster slapped his hands on his legs with false heartiness. Grimacing slightly at the glare his aunt shot his way, he nevertheless put a smile on his face and was determined to be genial. "Well, Christine, old thing, you needn't worry on that score. I'm as fit as ten fiddles and always - "

"I do hope luncheon is nearly ready," she interrupted.

I saw him bite back his frustration and turn to me. "Is lunch ready, Jeeves?"

"It will be ready momentarily, sir."

"I say, Mr. Wooster, cannot your man be more exact than that?"

"I beg your pardon?" Mr. Wooster asked, genuinely perplexed.

"I can't stand an inexact servant," she complained. "How is one to get anything done in a day when one is constantly waiting around for some slipshod domestic who feels a meal is to be served at his leisure and not at that of his master?"

I bristled inwardly, but strived to maintain my composure. My unusual state of mind, and three glasses of sherry, were perhaps not overly conducive to the task, but nevertheless, I had standards. I cared nothing for her opinion, but for my own sake I refused to even raise an eyebrow. I opened my mouth to offer my apologies and inform her that the meal would be served in three minutes, but Mr. Wooster spoke first.

"I say, there's no need to get impatient with Jeeves. He's as precise a cove as I ever met."

"Pardon me?" Miss Hayter-Fortescue replied frostily.

"Bertie! Hush up, you imbecile," his aunt admonished, apparently forgetting for the moment that she was meant to be selling Mr. Wooster as a good catch.

"I'm just pointing out that there's no call to worry, Christine old thing," Mr. Wooster went on, trying to smooth the waters. "Jeeves knows his business. If he says lunch will be on the table in half a mo, then it will be on the table in half a mo."

Mrs. Gregson's eyes rolled ceiling-ward. "Can the menace not even speak like an adult?" she moaned under her breath. And then she lowered her gaze again to glare at myself. _Even when you don't interfere, you interfere, _her look seemed to say.

And so it went. Mr. Wooster's pain aside, I had no wish to prolong my own, and so I served the meal as quickly as I could while still maintaining the proper level of decorum. Opinions ventured forth from Miss Hayter-Fortescue, agreements for same from Mrs. Gregson, and increasingly strained half-cut-off interjections from Mr. Wooster. My master futilely tried to ask Miss Hayter-Fortescue about her family, her friends, her home, but all turned to her many likes and dislikes. Among the things she found unpalatable were drinking, smoking, New York, reading mysteries (or any fiction, for that matter), garden parties, New Years Eve parties, staying in the city, and people who were slaves to their servants. After listening to this over the course of the meal, I personally begin to doubt whether Mrs. Gregson could have found a worse match for my master if she had summoned the devil to scour the Earth for one.

However, to my great surprise, my master appeared to be making every attempt to ingratiate himself with this _woman_ instead of merely wilting with misery in front of the growing spectre of doom. He smiled at her, solicited her opinion (as if she would not have offered it in any case) on many subjects, agreed with her when I knew her feelings on the matter in question were in exact opposition to his own, and generally spent the entire meal trying to make her as happy as possible.

It was incomprehensible to me. But, in the end, his efforts were of little use, as something took place which none of us present saw coming.

I am abashed to say the incident was in part my fault. While I said before that I had not imbibed of the sherry enough to make any noticeable difference in the performance of my duties, it may be that I should have said any _undue_ difference. No one looking at the way I served could have guessed I was anything other than sober as judge, but added to the distraction of Mr. Wooster's confusing behaviour, and my own uncharacteristic stir of emotions, my reflexes were not as they should have been. I had failed to note that Miss Hayter-Fortescue favoured the left hand, and when I bent to serve her the sponge cake with raspberry sauce I had prepared, I did not anticipate the sudden movement of her arm in time to avoid the accident. Her arm jarred mine, and I dropped the sponge, sauce side down, directly into her lap, badly staining her white summer frock.

The young lady let out a fantastic screech and then proceeded to voice her displeasure. _"You clumsy fool!"_

Shocked and embarrassed - for I had never done such a thing before - I made my apologies as best I could and offered to do anything within my power to make amends, even to the point of my purchasing a replacement garment despite what I suspected to be a prohibitive expense, but she would have none of it. I was still expressing my contrition when she picked up her tea cup and flung the contents squarely in my face.

I froze, and simultaneously I heard a gasp from across the table.

_"You blasted oaf! You cretin!" _the harridan went on hysterically, but, as she swung her hand up to slap my face, suddenly Mr. Wooster's hand was locked on her forearm and he wrenched her roughly away from me.

"Jeeves, are you all right?" he demanded, while still glaring at the young woman as if she might make a further strike.

"Yes, sir."

"Then go and get cleaned up."

"Yes, sir."

"What in the hell do you think you're playing at, you damned stupid girl!" I heard him shouting as I quickly removed myself to my chamber to wash my face and change my shirt and jacket.

"How dare you speak to me that way!"

"He'd just poured that tea! It hadn't time to cool! You could have scalded him, even blinded him!"

"He's ruined my dress!"

"So that's a good enough reason to injure a man, is it?" I heard my master ask incredulously.

"A bit of pain is good for them! It's the same as whipping a dog so it learns."

Coming back into the room just then, those two sentences stopped me dead. It was the tone of the words that said more than anything; the casual and yet utter conviction that a servant was something less than human rang clearer than a ranting speech an hour long could have, and it produced a tableau which has become burned into my memory. Mrs. Gregson had a slightly pained look upon her face (though in hindsight it may have been just chagrin at the impropriety of the scene her chosen marriage candidate was making), but it was Mr. Wooster's reaction that riveted my attention: his hand still gripped the young woman's arm, but at her odious statement, he nevertheless took a step back in shock. Then something flared in his eyes that I had never witnessed in him before. It was a cold, implacable rage.

_"You odious, vile..."_ he ground out through a tightly clenched jaw, before stopping himself with a visible exertion of will. He turned to me. "Jeeves."

"Yes, sir?"

"Fetch Miss Hayter-Fortescue's things. She's leaving."

"What?" the young woman exclaimed. "You cannot be serious! You're taking the part of a _servant_ over me?"

"Bertram, I will not have you treat guests in this fashion," Mrs. Gregson demanded imperiously. "I admit the scene was regrettable, but your man is perfectly fine. There is no call for - "

"If that is how you feel, Aunt Agatha, I will ask you to leave with her."

"Bertram! Do not use that tone of voice with me!" she reprimanded him in her usual dominating tone, expecting as always that it would cow him.

"No, Aunt Agatha, I will not have it anymore!" Physically dragging Miss Hayter-Fortescue towards the door, he called for me again.

"Fetch the ladies' things, Jeeves. They are both leaving. Now."

"Bertram! I insist - "

He bluntly interrupted her. "You will insist nothing! If you cannot show me the most basic respect of listening to my wishes within my own home, then I want nothing more to do with you! You will leave my home now, and take this rotten beazel with you, or I will call the authorities and report you for trespassing."

"Bertram, you unspeakable parasite, have you lost your mind? Throwing your own relations out of your house! This is exactly why I need to take you in hand. You have no judgment - "

"Judgment?" he demanded with a sharp laugh.

"Don't keep interrupting me, you foolish boy - "

"If you..." he broke off, and I noticed his eyes were glistening slightly. He took a deep breath and started again, his voice shaking not only with rage but with hurt this time, "If this is how little you know of me - how little you _think_ of me - that you would consider this... this _person..._ as a fit companion with which to share my life, then your judgment is hardly to be relied upon. Now get out!"

"BERTIE!" She 'had up a full head of steam' as the expression is, but I forestalled her before she could vent it in my master's direction.

"Your hat and coat, madam," I said, and handed the items to her.

"You're the cause of all this trouble!" Mrs. Gregson hissed at me. "Don't think I am unaware of the part you played in my nephew's accident. The hold you have over my spineless jellyfish of a nephew is positively criminal!"

"What was that?" Mr. Wooster demanded sharply. "What do you know?"

"That it was he who put you up to the whole ridiculous incident. He leads you around like a cur on a leash, you foolish boy, but you're too perverse to see it. But Ill see him out of your life if its the last thing I do."

"What my employee did or did not do is between him and myself," Mr. Wooster snapped. "And I shall thank you to keep your presumptuous nose out of my business!"

"You're a weakling," Miss Hayter-Fortescue sneered. "I'm leaving. I will never marry such a pitiful excuse for a man."

"I do hope that's a promise," Mr. Wooster replied.

"Hmphf," was her only rejoinder. I handed her hat and coat and opened the door for her.

"You haven't heard the last of this, Bertram," Mrs. Gregson turned to inform my master as she haughtily followed Miss Hayter-Fortescue out into the corridor.

"No doubt. I may be a fool, but even my onion isn't so completely rotted through as to think you would ever stop talking." And with that, he slammed the door in her astounded face.

-x-

I pride myself on being a man who does not shock easily. With any occasion, it is the man who seizes the moment when all others are paralyzed with confusion who has the upper hand. But in this instance, I could only stare at the rigid, quivering form of my master. It was only when his knees buckled that I was able to move again. I caught him in my arms and quickly moved him to settee and had him sit.

"Jeeves," he said, a bit breathlessly. "I don't feel quite the thing."

"What is it, sir?"

"My hands are shaking and I feel a bit strange round the tum."

"Do you feel as though you might be sick, sir?"

"I... I don't know. I don't think so." His words aside, there was a sudden quaver in the timbre of his voice that worried me. I bent down to examine his eyes and I even went so far as to place an unbidden hand on his forehead.

"Try not to distress yourself, sir." He had no fever and his eyes seemed clear. "It is most likely only the after effects of adrenalin." I could not tell which one of us I was trying to reassure.

He looked up and regarded me with a puzzled expression. "Of what?"

"Adrenalin, sir. It is a chemical in the body produced in moments of great stress or emotion. It can be very powerful, especially to someone such as yourself, who is not usually so...vehement." _He defended me. He was angry for my sake. How could I ever have thought he was unkind or a hypocrite?_ I asked myself bitterly.

"Vehement... yes, that would be the word," he chuckled weakly, and for a moment, just a moment, it was as if the rift between us had been sealed and things were as they had always been. But then, in the next instant, he pulled himself away and I could see in his face that same wall which had closed me off for the past few days descending once more.

"Yes, well, I think Jeeves, that I could use a shot of the needful. Please see to it, there's a good fellow."

I straightened and wiped any suggestion of disappointment from my face. "If you are sure you are well, sir?" It was not only the fact that he was unaccustomed to heated disagreements, I considered; he was still not recovered fully from the accident. I knew of one such case where a friend, recovering from an accident and consequently suffering from low blood pressure, had been faced with unexpected agitation and had fainted outright and concussed himself on a stone step when he fell.

He didn't look at me and his next words rang hollow. "Yes, yes, I'm sure Ill be ooja-cum-spiff in a moment. But I think I would like to be alone for awhile. Fetch me a drink and then... I don't know, go do the marketing or something, Jeeves."

"I don't believe there is anything we require at the market, sir."

"Then take the afternoon off and have a drink at your club. I don't care, just just leave me alone for a little while."

"Sir, if I may, I do not think it is wise if I leave you - "

"No, you may not may!" he snapped peevishly. "Oh, you know what I mean! Can't a man have a spot of privacy in his own home? You're as bad as Aunt Agatha - always telling me what I should do!"

"Very good, sir. I will leave if you wish." Despite many misgivings, I quickly realized that Mr. Wooster would not be moved, and that he was in no state to deal with further strife. Therefore, I fetched him his drink and then donned my hat and coat and left the flat. I decided that I would only go to the nearest public house for a quick libation, and then return as soon as was seemly. That way he would not be able to argue I had not followed his instructions and demand I leave a second time.

But when I arrived back at the flat less than a half an hour later, he was gone.


	13. Chapter 13

_**Chapter 13**_

The moment I stepped through the door, I knew I was alone in the flat.

Most days, I would have thought nothing of it. I have often returned from marketing or some other errand to find Mr. Wooster out. Usually I assume he has simply gone to his club, and I continue on with my usual household duties and trouble myself no further on the matter. After all, my master's comings and goings are his own affair and it is not my place to suggest otherwise by demanding he announce his presence.

However, after the fiasco at lunch, and Mr. Wooster's subsequent emotional turmoil, I deemed it prudent to make him aware of my own return in the off chance I was incorrect and he was still in the flat. I wished to spare him from the embarrassment of being taken unawares and perhaps surprised in the midst of an emotional display. Therefore, I closed the door more firmly than I am accustomed to doing, and then I proceeded into the flat in a step somewhat less quiet than what Mr. Wooster refers to as my usual "shimmer".

When I heard no reply nor answering sounds of stirring, I went to the door of my master's bed chamber and tapped gently and inquired, "Mr. Wooster, are you there?", hoping the flat merely felt so unnaturally silent because he had drifted peacefully off to sleep. But, when I entered, I found the room empty. There was not so much as a wrinkle on the bedspread to suggest he had even come in for a moment.

Afflicted by a sudden apprehension, my glance turned to the door to Mr. Wooster's bath. It was closed.

__

He wouldn't.

Striding towards the door, I unconsciously held my breath.

__

No. It never be in him to do such a thing.

I reached reluctantly for the doorknob, barely able to smother an unexpected flutter in my chest. Steeling myself, I thrust the door open -

And found nothing.

I cursed myself for an imbecile. An hysterical one, at that. But my discomfiture lingered and I felt a watery shakiness in my limbs. For a brief second there was also a sharp anger; I would not have admitted it then, but very idea of him doing such a thing twisted at my insides.

Asking myself how it was his fault I had let my imagination run away with me so foolishly, I forced myself to calm down and search the rest of the flat. Though I had no real hope of it, I realized that I could very well be jumping to ridiculous conclusions when all the time he might have fallen asleep in the guest bedroom, or been sitting preoccupied in the kitchen.

When though, as I expected, I did not find him, I searched the flat again, this time looking for any clue as to where he might have gone. As far as I could ascertain, he had taken only his jacket, his billfold and his keys to the flat. The keys to the two-seater were still on the small table by the door. This suggested he was either walking or had taken a cab. That he had taken no clothes with him hopefully meant he was not planning to be gone overnight.

_Unless he left them because he thought he would have no further need for them, _an inner voice offered.

_That is nonsense_, I argued. _Why would he take his billfold in such an event?_

_Perhaps he wishes to be identified after_, the voice suggested.

_No! _I insisted fiercely. _Why would he take his keys to the flat then? He means to return._

_It could have been nothing more than force of habit, _the voice continued.

What was wrong with me? I was arguing with myself. I refused to follow such an irrational line of thought any further. It was not solving anything. Why should not the most logical answer be the right one? Mr. Wooster had very likely gone to his club, just as he usually did in the afternoon. My first call, therefore, was to the Drones club.

He was not there, but this did not mean much since it may have been that he simply had not arrived yet. My unaccustomed panic may have made the time since my arrival home seem interminably long, but in truth it had only been a quarter of an hour. If Mr. Wooster was on foot, or had left just before I arrived, he would not have had sufficient time to make his way there.

After that, I went to speak with Mr. Jarvis the doorman. He had not seen Mr. Wooster, but he admitted he had been away from his post momentarily when Mr. Cranford from 3C had had his leg give out just in front of the door and had needed assistance to his flat. This information gave me some indication of when Mr. Wooster may have left - which turned out to be just after I had - but told me nothing more, and so, a trifle disheartened, I returned to the flat.

I made further calls, mostly to Mr. Wooster's friends, but had no success in tracking his whereabouts. That accomplished, there was little else I could do. I thought of making my way to the park in hopes that he had only gone for a walk, but I was afraid to leave in case he should return while I was absent. I therefore spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in a state of impatient endurance, waiting for word. But, apart from a rather exasperated call from Mrs. Travers - who had had a very... difficult... call from Mrs. Gregson, which in turn necessitated a fairly lengthy explanation of recent events from me - no one rang and my only diversions were preparing tea, and then supper, both of which still sat untouched by dark.

As the evening wore on into night, I did my best to busy myself. Too quickly, the flat was dusted, the ironing seen to, the torn trouser cuff of Mr. Wooster's blue suit mended and the silverware polished. As a last resort, I picked up an improving book in hopes of taking my mind off the myriad possible mishaps which might befall a man in my master's troubled and distracted state, but it was of no use. I could not concentrate on the words. No matter how roundly I reprimanded myself for being such a foolish alarmist, I was forced to finally admit to myself that I could not be at ease until my master was home.

At that moment, there was a noise outside in the corridor. I glanced at the clock. It was past two in the morning. Mr. Wooster had often been out later with no dire consequences, but still, I prayed it was him returning that I heard.

I quickly strode to the entrance and made it time to catch Mr. Wooster as he stumbled through the door and tripped on the edge of the rug. I caught him round the chest, but he still slid down to his knees.

"Jves?" he slurred into my waistcoat.

"Sir!" I was so thankful to have him home that I did not even regard our embarrassing position with the same internal exasperation I usually felt when seeing him intoxicated yet again.

He tilted a face with bleary red eyes up to me. "No one, Jves," he said, then turned his face down once more so that it rested against my stomach. "Oh, Jeeves," he moaned. "No one. None of them."

I did not know what he was trying to tell me, but the despondency in his voice was almost too hard to bear. "Please, sir," I said gently, "let me get you to bed."

"Yes, bed," he nodded (and it was a strange sensation indeed to feel his nose going up and down against my abdomen). " 'm so bally tired."

"Indeed, sir."

"Long day," he muttered, his voice fading a bit.

"Yes, sir," I agreed as I tried awkwardly to close the front door with him still in my arms.

"Bally things...better...morning...what's that wheeze, 'gain, J'ves?"

"Things will look brighter in the morning, sir."

" 'hatza baby! All lark thorns and rosy, rosy snails," he murmured.

"Yes, sir," I grunted as I half-carried, half-dragged him over towards the settee.

"No reason not to be hap...happy."

"I hope not, sir."

"Good then," he said. But here he did something strange: he took a deep breath and then burst into tears.

"Sir!" Usually after imbibing to excess, he was genial and merry, an exaggerated version of his normal sunny self. I had never seen so much as a tear fall from him before. I was stunned. His weeping was so unexpected I could not bring myself to let go of him, and so, despite my own discomfort with the situation, I sat myself on the settee and pulled him next to me.

"Sir, what is it? Are you hurt? Have you been in an accident?"

It was if he hadn't heard me. His sobs continued with all the fierceness of a torrential cloud-burst and I could feel how they wracked the thin frame in my arms.

"Sir, please, what is it? What is wrong?"

I felt his forehead move where it rested against my collarbone. I realized he was shaking his head no, telling me he couldn't answer. I let him be then and did not press him further. After a short while, though his sobs seemed just as bitter, they softened in their intensity and I felt him shiver. Clearly his physical exhaustion was winning out and I understood that I needed to get him to bed before he pinned me to my seat for the night by falling asleep on top of me.

As I stood him up, he drooped against me, his face nestled in the crook of my neck, and was finally silent. I took a step forward, but the motion only tipped him off his feet and - though I have never told him, as it would heartily embarrass even now - I reasoned that the simplest solution was for me to pick him up in my arms and carry him into his room. His height made it awkward, but not unduly so. I lowered him to a sitting position on the bed, and then took hold of his shoulders and got him to lie down, scooping his feet off the floor for him. Following that, I deftly removed his clothes and placed him in his pyjamas, and then I pulled the bedclothes over him, after which I intended to leave the room and head to my own bed.

But Mr. Wooster stirred uneasily just then. I saw his face crumple with distress and I stayed for a moment, watching and worried he would awaken. As I stood there, he groaned and turned over restlessly. I heard him cry, "Right...right..."

I should have woken him. He needed his rest, it was true, but I thought surely it was better for me to wake him than let him endure the misery he seemed to be going through. But I did not. Instead, I impulsively asked, "What is right, sir?"

"They're right... 'vryone..."

"About what, sir?" Why was I playing such a cruel trick?

"...less..." was all I could make out. He tossed and turned some moments more, but said nothing else but "could've". _Could've what? _I asked myself. _Less what? Right about what? _

It was exceedingly frustrating.

When I was certain he had settled, I retired to my own bed, by this time bitterly tired. But my mind was in too much turmoil to let sleep come easily.

Firstly, I was deeply ashamed, and not a little embarrassed, at my groundless pique of that morning. Even now, I cannot reflect on how obviously distraught Mr. Wooster still was about the events at Brinkley Court and yet, despite that, how he'd still defended me to his aunt and Miss Hayter-Fortescue, and not be humiliated by how badly I had misjudged him. For the past few days, I had been bemoaning Mr. Wooster's distant attitude, questioning whether he _saw_ me any longer, but now...now I wondered ironically if I had ever truly seen _him_.

A man who serves but a single individual is in an odd relationship at the best of times. You are often each other's sole company, you share your day to day experiences, your patterns of living, and your home with a person whom you know intimately and yet who is expected to think nothing of your existence. You are an intricate part of his daily functioning, and yet his home is not yours: you are not to sit in his presence, have guests over, use any room but the one designated to you, initiate casual conversation or share your opinion unless asked to do so. You are separate from him. Your days may run along parallel lines, but, as people, your lives do not intersect. You are, in essence, nothing more than a useful appliance: in much the same way an icebox serves to keep the master's food fresh or the telephone there to let him converse with people not present, you are a convenience.

Yet it is not that simple.

Before this, if asked who I naturally felt closer to, my family or my employer, I would have said my family without hesitation. They knew me, they were continuous - they did not cease to be part of my life when I changed positions, I was free to converse with them as equals.

However, I do not see them everyday. In fact, I rarely see them more than once a year now, if that. I do not share a home with them, nor do I share any recent memories with them. I do not know all of the little things about them that I do about Mr. Wooster, and it is not they who have the better chance of still being part of my life in the future.

But doing so with Mr. Wooster...did that make us friends? Socially, we could not be, but question was less black and white when I considered how we interacted here, in the home we had, so to speak, built with one another. And did I want to be think of him as a friend? There was no doubt he was an extremely honourable individual, but I found it frightening to let go of the preconceptions I had lived with all of my life. Professional detachment was still a very valuable asset after all, and a protective one as well.

Whatever I thought, though, it was obvious I had been immensely selfish. I had always been fond of him, yes, but to me Mr. Wooster had up till now mainly been a collection of habits and traits to which it was my duty to work around, leading me to judge him solely by the relative ease with which I was allowed to manage him. My master as a _man_, warm flesh and blood, sometimes suave but more often endearingly hapless, resiliently good-natured but still so easily hurt - all this I had blinded myself to, preferring to treat him as my own model gentleman - a thing to dress and guide as I would, like a toy or a pet. And like a pet, I believed that if he misbehaved or did not look well-groomed, others might think less of me.

That I could think of another human being this way, let alone one so deserving as my master, was an appalling revelation. For the first time I realized that, in my continual preoccupation with my own position and how he saw me, I had never spent a moment on seeing him for what he was and what he might feel about our relationship as master and servant. But more than that, by not seeing him as a person, I was no better than what I had thought him to be. In fact, I was no better than Miss Hayter-Fortescue.

Unfortunately, with as much self-disgust as I felt now, things were to get worse in the morning.


	14. Chapter 14

_**Chapter 14**_

Future readers of this account (though at the moment I cannot conceive as to who you might be), will no doubt by now consider my powers of perception remarkably dim and perhaps even have begun to wonder if my master's memoirs were in fact nothing but works of utter fiction.

Again and again - when I learned of the missing bicycle, when I heard there had been blood on Mr. Wooster's shirt, when young Philpot blurted out the name Nixon - I had been handed clues that something disastrous had happened and yet had failed to follow them up.

But what was worse than that, what is completely confounding to me, is how often I had come close to fully realizing my guilt, only to run from it each and every time. It bespeaks of a sort of cowardice I would never have considered I possessed. Even now, my mind apparently flees from the idea of how much pain I caused: re-reading the chapter I wrote just yesterday, I claim that Mr. Wooster's weeping of the night after the luncheon were the first tears I had seen from him, but of course that is not true. How could I have been so quick as to forget the scene in the music room at Brinkley Court? Or the turning away of his head when I made my feeble apology at the hospital?

For that matter, how could I have forgot the look on his face when my part in the incident of the girls' school was revealed? Or the horror I felt when porter Philpot informed me Mr. Wooster had been struck by a car? The guilt I felt watching his family wait anxiously for word of his surgery? Even when my unconscious laid the issue bare with a horrifying dream, I was still able to run from it, either by seizing on distractions or by - my Lord - convincing myself that somehow _I _was the one who had been wronged!

No, fool that I was, I would literally need things spelled out in black and white before I could truly see the damage I had done.

-x-

The morning after Mr. Wooster's upset was an exceedingly beautiful one. The sun was shining with a warmth and a slightly hazy quality that foretold a humid and uncomfortable afternoon, but at that hour, with the dew still lingering on the grass in the park across the street, it was glorious. In spite of his usual penchant for sleeping late, it was the sort of morning my master would have greeted with exuberance.

Which brought me to a conundrum: should I awaken my master at the time I had done so for the past few mornings since our return from Market Snodsbury, or let him sleep until he awoke naturally?

At that point, I still had no idea why he had requested the change in our routine, but it had seemed to please him. And, as I had had no instructions to the contrary, I decided to proceed. With restorative in hand, I knocked gently on his door.

"Sir? Are you awake, sir?" There was no answer, but I did hear sounds of stirring and so I entered.

In the two years or so I had served him, I do not think I had ever seen Mr. Wooster so uneasy in his sleep. He was not stirring, but rather tossing and turning feverishly. As I stood there watching with mounting concern, he kicked the bedclothes away with a moan, only to shiver and then clutch at them convulsively a second later, pulling them up so far that they came loose and exposed the bare mattress.

Without further thought, I placed the glass with the restorative on his night table and reached out my hand to wake him. I had no time to say anything, the merest touch on his shoulder caused him to jerk upright in bed with a shout.

"Sir? Are you all right?" Rigid and staring with wide, wild eyes, I am not sure if he knew I was there. I tried again. "It is me, sir. Jeeves. There is nothing to worry about."

He was shaking and the colour had drained from his face. He turned to look at me, but still did not speak.

Despite the inappropriateness of the action, I placed my hand on his shoulder again, hoping to ease his trembling. "Everything is all right, sir. It was only a dream."

"No," he whispered so softly I almost didn't hear him. "It wasn't."

"Sir?" He had to have been dreaming of the accident. _Please tell me, sir, _I begged silently. _Please let me help you._

"Nothing, Jeeves. Nothing."

"Very good, sir." I adjusted his pillows behind him, so that he could sit up comfortably against the bedstead and offered him the restorative.

"Came home under the surface again, did I, Jeeves?" he asked after downing it, making an effort to sound normal but without quite pulling it off.

"It is not for me to say, sir."

"No, no, of course not." His hand quivered as he worried at the sheets. "What sort of day is it then, Jeeves?"

"Extremely clement, sir."

"Ah, yes...that's...that's good...I suppose." He sounded uncertain of the fact.

I hesitated. "If you will forgive me for saying so, sir, you still appear to be out of sorts from your disturbance. It is early; perhaps you would prefer to return to your rest for another few hours?"

"No!" he exclaimed. Then, slightly abashed, he went on. "No, no, its fine, Jeeves - its nothing getting on the outside of a spot of breakfast couldn't cure."

I did not let the frown show on my face. "As you wish, sir."

As I had never made a habit of watching him take his morning meal, I returned to the kitchen to clear away the dishes. When I came back for the tray, however, I saw him pushing the eggs around on his plate with a mindless despondency and I sighed; he could not have eaten more than a few bites. But when I inquired if breakfast had been to his liking, he insisted that it had been fine. "Top hole" was the exact term he used.

But the same subdued mood seemed to hold him in its grip as he bathed. He sat in the water so long without reaching for the soap I was almost tempted to remind him to wash. Afterwards, when I was assisting him to dress, he expressed no desires for any outlandishly coloured tie, or indeed even any particular suit, insisting on leaving the decision to me. I choose his light brown suit, but then I purposely picked a pair of socks of the most odious dark olive colour to see how he would react.

"Are these socks to your liking, sir?"

"They're perfectly fine, Jeeves." Normally I would have put a statement like this down to my masters questionable sense of colour, but this time he had not even looked at them.

"But they are olive, sir."

"Oh, please, just do whatever you think best, Jeeves!" he demanded with the same hopeless frustration an exhausted child displays when tasked with too many questions or chores that are beyond him. I was severely taken aback by pain I heard threading his tone and, wordlessly, I put the offending socks back in the drawer and choose a more suitable pair.

However, what truly worried me, what shook me to my core, was something that happened not ten minutes later when Mr. Wooster donned his jacket and hat as if meaning to go out, but then stopped in front of the door and simply stood there.

When I asked him if something was the matter, he said with a small, lost voice, "I...I don't know where to go, Jeeves."

I stiffened, but strove to keep my voice steady. "Do you not want to go to your club, sir?" Truthfully, it was a little early for that as none of his friends would be there, but his actions upon leaving had seemed so automatic that was where I had assumed he was off to.

He gave a small shake of his head.

I walked slowly closer, watching him carefully. "Did you perhaps have an errand to run? A trip to the tailor's or the bank?" I suggested gently, as if he had had something to do and it had merely slipped his mind like a name on the tip of a person's tongue.

"No, there's nowhere I want to be and definitely nowhere I need to be. No one wants to see me. There's no one I..." he trailed off, but he continued to stand there, gazing at the door before him as if rooted to the spot.

"Perhaps you would enjoy a walk in the park, sir. Or a picture at the cinema," I went on, spouting inconsequential nonsense in a soothing tone so as not to startle him, and hoping more than anything that the chill going through me was nothing but an overreaction.

The eyes that turned to me were haunted and dark, but it was the voice that said, "No one wants me, Jeeves," so matter-of-factly that I could not bear. It broke me from my proper servant armour and I grabbed his arm.

"Please do not speak that way, sir! There are many people who would wish for your company. Too many to count, in fact."

"I thought I was finally doing something right. I thought one of them might finally approve of me."

"Please, sir, you are still overwrought. And worn down. The doctors said you still needed another four weeks of rest and recovery but you have been going out every morning. Why not stay home today? Come. Come sit on the chesterfield, sir, and I will make you some tea."

He kept talking in that same flat tone as if he hadn't heard me. "I was going to get a job, you see. I pounded the streets for hours and went to every employment agency I could find. I even asked old Sippy for a job working with him at the Mayfair Gazette. And I was going to ask Aunt Agatha if she could arrange for me to have another fling at being a personal secretary to that Cabinet Minister of hers."

"Sir, finding employment can be a difficult proposition. But you mustn't get discouraged - "

"A wife too. I was going to get a wife. I was going to go through with it this time. I was even happy about it. I didn't know if Id really like it, but I thought, 'Now at least there'll be someone for me, someone I'm special to, someone who is will stick by me more than anyone else.' Everyone has someone like that, you know. Tuppy has Angela, Gussie has Madeline, Bingo has Rosie, Ginger has Mrs. Ginger. Even Aunt Dahlia and Uncle Tom have each other."

It was in my mind to tell him that someday he would find that person, that he was too good of a man to spend his life alone, that everything came to those who waited, but he suddenly snapped out of his trance and pulled his arm out of my grasp.

"No. Don't touch me." He backed away from me, then shook himself and straightened his spine. "I'm just talking rot. I'm fine. Everything's fine."

I had never seen him - or had ever thought to see him - so changeable as I did that morning. Nightmares, anxiousness, melancholy, and now this drawing away into himself, all in the space of an hour. It could not go on. "Sir, is there perhaps something more that is bothering you? Should we not discuss the events at Brinkley Court?"

"NO!"

"Sir, I must insist - "

"No, I will not!" he exclaimed and moved towards the door, but I quickly stepped between him and it.

"Sir, please! I cannot let you go out while you are in this state."

"Damnit, Jeeves! What are you playing at? Get out of my way!"

"I will not, sir!"

He grabbed hold of me and tried to move me by force, but it was no good. "You have no right to do this, Jeeves!" he cried furiously. "This is my flat and you are my servant!"

I took hold of his arms and held him away from me. "That is as may be, but I cannot let you go."

"Jeeves, take your hands off me!" He struggled and did his best to try and twist out of my grasp, but I would not release him.

"I will not let you leave, sir."

"JEEVES! I demand that you let me go!" he ordered.

"No, sir!"

He reached for the front of my uniform coat and squeezed the material in his hands. "_Please_, Jeeves," he pleaded. "Please... I can't. _It's just too blasted hard!"_

"We must discuss what happened, sir."

His shoulders slumped and he bowed his head. "No, I can't. I can't," he mumbled, defeated now, and my word, how it did hurt to hear him like that.

"You must try and understand, sir - you cannot go on like this. _We _cannot go on like this."

In answer, he suddenly swayed and sagged against me. Thankfully I already had a grip on him, or he would have fallen to the floor, but he was bent double over my arm before I could even think.

"Oh, Jeeves, everything's spin...spinning," he panted.

I got him to the chesterfield and made him sit down and bend over so that his head was between his legs. "How do you feel, sir?"

"Like all of my insides have been washed out and replaced with ice water."

"Sir, I'm going to ring the doctor."

"No, I don't want - "

"Sir, there will be no arguing about this. _I am going to ring the doctor whether you like it or not._" I do not know whether it was due to his own weakness, or the strain and slight edge of panic evident in my voice, but he ceased his protestations.

The nurse I spoke to on the phone assured me the doctor would arrive as soon as he could. Her tone suggested it was something she said to every patient, but I hoped for the best. I then assisted Mr. Wooster to his bed. He voiced his complaints, but I believe his condition was worrying even him because they sounded like something made purely for form's sake. As I was helping him remove the clothes I had just put him into such a short time ago (I believe it was a sign of the severe state of distraction we were both in that Mr. Wooster was still wearing his outer jacket), he had another dizzy spell and bumped his knee against his night table, knocking over his lamp and a couple of books.

He groaned. "I swear, with all of this swooning, I'm beginning to feel like some bally Victorian beazel in one of Rosie's novels." If he hadn't sounded so genuinely distressed, I might have smiled at how normal his comment was.

"I do not think you are quite that bad, sir," I tried to say lightly, but the falling objects had been an eerie reminder to me of when he had collapsed at Brinkley that fateful day.

He did not answer, but laid down and immediately closed his eyes, letting out one long sigh. He was asleep within seconds.

After watching him some time to make sure he was truly resting peacefully, I bent to pick up the lamp and the books off of the floor. As I did so, a packet of folded over papers fell out of one of the volumes.

Now, I have made several confessions in this narrative, not the least of which is eavesdropping. But I will declare here that I do not make it a habit to read my master's personal documents. However, they spilled on the floor in such a way that I was able to catch my own name on the top of the first page.

I looked at my master. His eyes were still closed and his breathing was even. And the papers had fallen on the other side of the night table, out of his sight. I hesitated a moment more, but then I plucked the sheets off of the floor and swiftly secreted them in my morning coat, all the while feeling like a furtive cad, but nearly as guilty as I should have.

Deciding that my quarters would be the safest place to examine the documents, I went there and only withdrew the packet after locking the door behind me. I listened for a moment in case my master needed me, then I sat on my bed, unfolded the papers and smoothed them out on my knee.

It was one of his lists. He makes them often when he cannot decide on something.

This one appeared to be about me. (I have re-created it here, from a copy I made in order to always remind myself of the lesson I was so slow to learn.)

-x-

JEEVES

Debit - He got rid of my mess jacket after specifically promising not to. So not only does he think nothing of destroying my things, he breaks his promises too.

Credit - He thought it would make me look foolish. He's probably right. Maybe if I could tell these things better, I wouldn't look like such a fathead all of the time.

Debit - He told the substitute valet (and Pauline Stoker!) that I was mentally negligible.

Credit - Aren't I? I can't hand the fellow the mitten just for stating a fact. And what would I do without him? I'd be exactly the Attila Aunt D calls me, strewing ruin and desolation about the countryside. What kind of havoc would I cause without Jeeves there to clean up after me? It must tire the poor cove out immeasurably.

Debit - He told Bingo's uncle I was a loony.

Credit - It did solve Bingo's problem, no matter how it made me feel.

Debit - He helped Gussie without even asking me.

Credit - Why should that bother me?

Debit - I'm the one he works for. Is it so wrong to think he should work harder for me than for some chump I haven't seen in years, who doesn't even have the decency to wait until I'm home before wrangling my valet to pull him out of the soup?

Credit - Jeeves was probably just doing it because he thought I would want him to. And what if Jeeves feels he HAS to help because its part of his job? What if he felt forced into it?

Debit - That's nonsense. He has no trouble saying no to me when there's something he doesn't want to do.

Credit - No matter what, you cant fault a cove for trying to help someone in need.

Debit - Why does he do his job so well? I thought it was because he liked serving me, but maybe its just professional pride on his part. Maybe he doesn't like being here at all, but is just a perfectionist. Or maybe its something else. Maybe he likes being so much smarter than me and being able to control me so easily.

Credit - Does any of it matter? He serves me because I pay him and that's all that I should expect. Maybe my assuming we were friends was presumptuous and unfair. In any case, it would be pretty one-sided. Its hardly like he can say he hates me.

Debit - Everyone will laugh at me if I keep him, now that they know the full story. They must know; Aunt Agatha could have only heard from Aunt Dahlia, but how did she find out? Did he tell her? Was he bragging about it? They'll think I'm as spineless as a jelly if I don't sack a man who could humiliate me that way and they'd be right.

Credit - He's all I have to offer. When I told Gussie I was in his corner, he said, "Thanks, old man. And Jeeves, of course, which is the thing that really matters." So I should be grateful; they only want a clown with me, but they stop laughing when they want something, at least for a little bit.

Debit - He'll just go off again someday. He's not loyal. I'll want to play the trumpet, or I'll buy a really horrific tie, and he'll be off.

Credit - It's your fault for growing dependent on him in the first place. It's good to remember that people always leave.

Debit - He made me realize I haven't got anyone I can trust.

Credit - He opened your eyes. And who has he got to trust?

Debit - He could trust me.

Credit - To do what? Get him and everyone else deeper into the soup and start it boiling?

Debit - He made me feel invisible. No one was thinking of ME at all.

Credit - Maybe I've been making him feel invisible? Is that what its like to be a servant?

Debit - He made me feel so alone.

Credit - I am, so maybe I should keep him so I remember that fact.

Debit - He purposely turned the others against me and made them hate me, even if only for a little while.

Credit - He did it to serve what he thought were my wishes.

Debit - Did he? Maybe he just likes making his plans and playing his game with all of us.

Credit - You don't know that.

Debit - He had everyone laughing at me. Just when I most wanted them to respect me - which he knew - he made me the focus of all their scorn and derision.

Credit - They hardly needed his help. And hes done you a favour by showing you what they really think.

Debit - He tricked me, humiliated me, betrayed me, went out of his way to frighten me with that awful story about Mr. Nixon, all to laugh at me and get his own back about the mess jacket.

Credit - Are my hurt feelings really worth taking his livelihood away?

Debit - How can I trust him? I'm just an egg to him.

Credit -

-x-

The reference to an egg confused me, but it hurt even more to see that there was nothing in the Credit column. Did that mean he was going to dismiss me?

But I was quickly distracted from that thought by something written shakily at the bottom of the page, far below the rest of the list:

-x-

Debit - He made me feel worthless.

Credit - Do I deserve any better? Look what I did to the Davies family. They're right - Aunt Agatha, Aunt Dahlia, all of them. I am worthless. I could've killed that little boy and his family.

-x-

_He breaks his promises._

_He told the substitute valet I was mentally negligible._

_He's all I have to offer._

_It's good to remember that people always leave._

_He had everyone laughing at me._

_He made me feel so alone._

_He made me feel worthless._

_How can I trust him?_

My God! Is this what he had been going through all of this time? I read the end of the list again and noticed something: _They're right_. _I could've_ killed that little boy and his family. And not _less, _but _worthless. I am worthless. _

That was what had been torturing him the night before.

For the first time in my adult life, tears pricked at my eyes. I crumpled the list in my clenched fist and covered my mouth with my other hand to stop a gasp. I had already felt remorse, but this this made me see what I was.

Is this what I did to people? Destroy their sense of self-worth? Take away all of their illusions of happiness and security? Manipulate them into this kind of despair and hopelessness and then keep my position because I left them feeling they did not deserve any better?

_I could've killed that little boy and his family._

This sickened me most of all, that this... _this..._was what I had brought my master to. I knew his kind heart would have made him feel bad for the accident when it happened - that was unavoidable no matter how much I might have tried to convince him the incident was not his fault - but to think that he had been tormenting himself all these weeks with so much _guilt _believing that he had nearly killed a child...

I swore then and there that I would make it better. Somehow I would make him understand that it was not his fault at all, that it was mine. Somehow I would make him see how truly deserving he was.

The doorbell rang and I wiped my eyes before going to let in the doctor.

* * *

_Author's note: Sorry if the Debit/Credit list seems a little confusing. I had originally had spaces between each new argument, but keeps screwing up the format every time I try to save._


	15. Chapter 15

**_Chapter 15_**

While the doctor was examining Mr. Wooster, I attempted to busy myself in the kitchen. It was not until I realized I was polishing the silver with the solution I generally use to do the washing up, that I become conscious of how preoccupied I was. It was a mark of my concern for my master's prognosis how little I fretted about my mistake.

Soon however (too soon for his examination to have been properly thorough, in my opinion), the doctor came in search of me. He was a fussy, self-important individual, who apparently looked with disapproval at the idea of having to discuss his patient's health with a servant, but that was of little matter to me if he would only tell me what I could do for Mr. Wooster. In the end, though, he merely informed me as to what I already knew: that Mr. Wooster required rest and nourishment to build up his strength. He advised me that my master should be shielded from anything that might cause him undue anxiousness, and further suggested he go on a holiday, if possible. Appearing pleasant for the first time in the conversation, he pulled a brochure out of the pocket of his suit jacket advertising a hotel in Brighton. I noticed the proprietress listed possessed the same surname as the doctor and suspected there may have been ulterior motives in his recommendation. Still, the idea of a rest holiday was sound.

Finally, enamoured as many physicians are in issuing dictates, he passed me a list of what he called "fortifying foods", along with the name of an establishment where I could purchase them. (The owner of which also shared the doctor's surname.) I looked it over carefully, but sighed; I could have told him the laying in of proper sustenance was hardly the problem; the difficulty lay in actually convincing Mr. Wooster to eat.

After I had shown the doctor out, I quietly entered my master's bedchamber to ascertain for myself whether or not he was truly well. The doctor had given him a sedative and he was breathing slow and steady. There was a slight flush to his cheeks, but I put that down to it being an exceedingly warm afternoon. Gently I turned down the uppermost blanket and then closed Mr. Wooster's drapes as far as I could in order to keep out the worst of the blazing sunlight. Then, for a moment, I stood and gazed at him while he slept.

But it hurt so very much to look at him, and so I quickly turned away.

_-x-_

Generally speaking, I am one who welcomes time for quiet solitude and contemplation, but the silence of the following few weeks proved to be a great trial.

The flat had never been so clean - I scrubbed and polished till every feature gleamed. My master's wardrobe was in an impeccable state, everything cleaned, mended, pressed and starched. His correspondence was complete and already in the post, his accounts settled up to the minute, and invitations all answered (he declined every one). The larder was stocked to overflowing (the special orders had taken but a trice once placed with our regular grocer) and fresh flowers adorned the vase near the piano every day. I had even completed the spring cleaning, despite the season.

And yet, there seemed to be far too many free hours left in my day. Hours where I could do nothing but watch and brood on the worrying state of my master.

I urged him as frequently as propriety allowed (and even more so) to consider the doctor's suggestion of a holiday. However, while he deemed the idea an acceptable one, he expressed no enthusiasm, nor would he give me any indication as to where he might like to travel to.

"Wherever you feel is best, Jeeves," he would say when I asked.

"Do you not have any preferences, sir? This holiday is meant to be a rest-cure for _you_."

"It's of no matter to me, Jeeves."

"Perhaps Scotland then, sir?" I suggested once, hoping a touch of guidance might spur him to some decision. "The air would be cooler and far less draining than the heat of the city."

"That's fine," he replied listlessly. "You could do some fishing."

I was taken aback, and then appalled once I understood his meaning - he had given into the idea because he was under the impression I was manipulating him in order to have a holiday for myself. Tears pricked behind my eyes and I was unable to say what saddened me more - that he would believe such a thing of me at this time (though I had to admit it was not without cause considering our history), or that he no longer saw any use in standing up to me.

I had succeeded in what I had always seen as a servant's ideal accomplishment: I had broken my master to my will.

And I was unable to recall a time when I had ever felt so awful.

I made a few more attempts, stressing the appeal of more ideal weather, the lack of relations (Mrs. Gregson rang daily, demanding he speak with her), and the absence of importuning friends. Mr. Wooster had had several visitors since we had been home. Mr. Little and Mr. Glossop had a least chatted with him for a half an hour (Mr. Little even bringing Mr. Wooster a get well gift) before hinting they had some problem where they wished for my services, but Mr. Fink-Nottle (already at odds with Miss Bassett), to my disgust had barely spared my master a few moments before asking to see me.

The first time it happened, there had been such a look on my master's face…one like a child being viciously slapped by his loving mother for no reason. The expression flitted away as swiftly as it had come, and Mr. Wooster waved them in my direction, but I did not miss the way his eyes were dull with sorrow.

Needless to say, I took each man into the kitchen and told them I was unfortunately unable to help them at the present time. It took all my will to remain polite when what I sorely wished to do was to kick each of them in the backside and send them off with a flea in their ear, but I had to remember that - for better or worse - these were still Mr. Wooster's friends and their company would be hard for him to escape seeing as they all had the same acquaintances.

However, even with these events, Mr. Wooster showed no desire to travel and so we remained at the flat. Days passed slowly and, left with little to do, I found myself often watching my master and noticing the many changes in his personality.

He did little with his days; no longer going out to his club or to the cinema. Wireless programmes he had formerly enjoyed went unlistened to. I had purchased several new lurid mystery novels for him, but he had yet to get through a single one. Hours were spent alternating from mindlessly staring out of the window to imbibing more than was his wont, but even when intoxicated, he never seemed happy. For days on end, he would refuse to go out, while other days he would slip out in the morning and be gone until well after dark, returning home pale and on shaky legs. I followed him several times when he did this, learning that on these days he did nothing but walk for hours and hours with seemingly no destination in mind, pushing himself nearly to exhaustion for reasons I was never aware of, unless it was in a vain hope of tiring himself to the point of sleeping through the night without nightmares.

More concerning was how little he spoke to anyone anymore. There were no fanciful observations, no whimsical expressions - never had I heard him so speak so plainly and without adornment - no comments nor complaints nor requests. He called on no one, and, other than the occasional desultory compliment to myself for politeness' sake, he said next to nothing from morning till night.

But the worst perhaps was the way he would play his piano endlessly, almost obsessively at times as if desperate for the distraction, but never _sing._

One night when he was particularly fatigued, I assisted him to bed. He turned to me and said, "Thank you, Jeeves. You are a very… _conscientious employee_." For a moment, I thought he had been about to say something more, but it was not to be.

What a strange man I was. My master had expressed his gratitude and praised me, but all I could feel was heart-breaking disappointment.

How I wished he had called me a good friend instead.

_-x-_

That night I lay awake, thinking about the situation between my master and I. I asked myself when I had ever served _him_. When, beyond the trifling duties for which I was paid so generously, had I ever stretched myself to further _his_ interests? Yes, I had often extricated him from the clutches of some grasping female or disgruntled rival, but had not that been just as much for my own comfort as for his? And yes, to put him in a good mood, I might arrange for to him win some small token once and awhile - a pittance on an egg and spoon race at some village fete, for instance - but only when my own funds were on the line as well or when I wanted something from him. More than once I had let him lose a wager by keeping vital information to myself.

Did I _require_ him to need me? Was that it? Had I abused him this way so that he would be forced to acknowledge my superiority? So that he would see how vital I was to his existence and be afraid to dismiss me?

I sat up with a start, suddenly feeling ill.

Whatever my motivation had been was suddenly immaterial - finally I understood what mattered was why he_ hadn__'__t _dismissed me.

Had Mr. Wooster truly forgiven me, or did he simply believe he could not do without me?

Even now, I had been focusing on what this situation was doing to me, but for the first time I asked myself what it was doing to _him_. I had skirted around the issue of my own guilt for weeks now, trying to find explanations for my behaviour, analyzing why, why, why, and brooding on how uncomfortable things were now because of it.

In its way, however, was doing that not just as arrogant in its self-preoccupation as my foolishly deluding myself that I had been the wronged individual had been? I had only dwelt on how this was affecting me, in essence still hiding from seeing the true damage I had done to Mr. Wooster, but in doing so, I had left the full burden of guilt to be assumed by him, not only for the accident itself, but indirectly for how things were between us. What's more, by forcing him to accept my apologies so soon after events, I had made it impossible for him to deal with his own misery. He had forgiven me, so to him it was dishonourable to come back and blame me for the incident, or even to mention it again. So he had turned his pain inwards, blaming himself.

What did it matter _why_ I had treated him so terribly? The fact is that I had done so and whatever my reasons may have been, they had been immensely selfish. And what did it matter how I felt now? My unhappiness was of my own doing, but Mr. Wooster's despondency was not of his, but of mine as well.

I wished for him to call me a friend, but suddenly it was clear that what I had done to him had robbed him of the belief he had any friends at all. I had made him believe he was alone in the world. As well, I had made him feel worthless - too worthless to believe he was worth caring about, too worthless even to think he should have a say in his own life.

He had ceased to argue about how to help his acquaintances or dress himself or where to go on holiday, not because I was his servant and usually dealt with those duties, _but because he had given up. _

I had broken my master not just to my will, but completely and utterly. Perhaps even irreparably.

Several hours later, after Mr. Wooster had gone out, a neighbour's cook came by looking to borrow a cup of sugar and found me furiously banging a baking sheet against the sink and weeping in helpless despair.

_-x-_

That evening I handed my master an envelope.

"What is this, Jeeves?"

"It is my letter of resignation, sir."

.

* * *

_Author's note:_

_It's been over two years since my last chapter, and still I had wonderful readers giving me encouragement. Leaving this story for so long was, in this case, not a matter of my usual laziness, but still, seeing people hang on this long was not something I had any reason to expect. Every new hit or review truly meant a lot to me. Thank you. And I hope this new chapter meets your expectations (it's been awhile since I attempted "Jeeves-speak"). _

_As for new chapters, I'm not going to promise anything, but hopefully it will not be two years again! _


	16. Chapter 16

_**Chapter 16**_

"_It is my letter of resignation, sir.__"_

There was a particular _thingness _- as he himself might have phrased it - to my master's expression when I uttered those fateful words. A slight widening of the eyes, the smallest parting of the lips in shock, and something else, something indefinable - a sort of sudden and intense depth of feeling in his features telling of unavoidable sorrow - that took me right in the middle of the breastbone. I nearly changed my mind then and there, but I hesitated a moment too long. Before I could pass it off as a grievous mistake, Mr. Wooster looked away and, swallowing hard, said, "I understand, Jeeves. Perhaps its for the best, after all."

I straightened and gave a small nod. "Very good, Sir." Yes, he was right. It was for the best. It was my presence that was oppressing him; free of the psychological tyrant who manipulated him, he could finally feel at ease and start to recover from his ordeal. Without me, he might think well of himself again, and, at the very least, his family and friends would be forced to look to him for his own company and not the artful servant he brought with him.

No, I could not go back on all my good intentions simply because I suddenly realized I never wanted to be anywhere else for the rest of my life.

_-x-_

I remained for the obligatory fortnight, consulting with various agencies in order to secure the most suitable replacement and then organizing my master's household so as to be able to hand it over with the barest minimum of fuss.

For the remainder of my time, I did my utmost to make him as happy as I could. I prepared his favourite dishes, placing each in front of him with as much of a smile and a stiff upper lip as I could manage. Come the evenings, I would leave out the paper, folded to the listed attractions at the cinema or turn on the wireless when I knew his programmes were about to commence so that he would not forget and thereby lose the chance to enjoy himself for a little while. One poignant evening, he even consented for me to read to him, and as the late summer sun slowly set outside our little flat, together we shared the most recent adventures of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

It was a time I will never forget.

He, for his part, simply watched me regretfully when he thought I was not looking. One time, he reached out a hand, as if he wanted to take me by the arm and shake some sense into me or beg me to stay, but whipped it away when he caught my gaze and quickly strode off to another room without a word.

In that moment, I loved him. There was no thought as to whether it was as a friend or a brother or a master worthy of my devotion, I only knew he was inexpressibly dear to me. Without him, my future would indeed be bleak.

_-x-_

Strange how one could want something so painful never to end, however, all too soon, my notice was up. The scene that morning as I was about to depart for the final time was exceedingly awkward.

"I say, you… you have all your things, don't you?" Mr. Wooster worried. "I could always send something on if you like. So you wouldn't have to lug the heavier whatnots about."

"Thank you, sir, but all of the furnishings belonged to you and should be left for my replacement."

"Not the bookshelf, Jeeves! That was for you. I meant it as a gift."

I would have preferred to leave it - a valet cannot be sure of what his next situation will afford in terms of accommodations - however, I could sense Mr. Wooster's desire for me to take the item, and so I acquiesced and told him that, in that case, I would avail myself of his kind offer to have it sent on later.

We remained silent for some moments, unable to think of anything further to say. Finally, I took hold of my valise, gathered up my coat and umbrella, placed my hat upon my head and proceeded to the door. Once there, I extended my hand.

"If you will forgive the liberty, sir."

Mr. Wooster blinked, then eagerly grasped my hand in his own.

"Goodbye, sir."

"Good… Goodbye, old chap." He shook my hand and if our smiles were a touch wobbly and our eyes a little moist, neither of us made mention of it. "Here, let me get the door for you, Jeeves."

"Thank you, sir."

He opened the door and then a sad smile for some reason graced his face upon seeing the empty corridor. "My word," he said, "I half expected to find a line from here to Piccadilly Circus of potential employers clamouring at the door for your services, Jeeves. It's a marvel Oofy Prosser's claw marks alone haven't shredded my front door to splintery bobs."

I did my best not to grimace. "I suspect, sir, that you overestimate my worth."

"What utter tosh, Jeeves! All of my friends have tried to spirit you away at one time or another. I think even Rocky Todd tried it once, despite his avowed pash for the simple and uncomplicated life."

"Perhaps, sir, but after obtaining something one often finds that it is not all one would wish. Previous employers enjoyed my services at first, but usually tended to find my efficiency eventually made them uncomfortable." Taking advantage of his confusion at this statement, I took my leave.

I was half way to the lift when Mr. Wooster stepped out from his doorway and called to me. "Jeeves?"

"Sir?"

"You mean that marvellous fish-fed brain of yours, don't you? Your _intelligence _is what scared the blighters off?"

"I cannot answer that, sir."

"Is that why you are leaving now - because you think…"

"No, sir. That is not at all the reason this time. You are unique, Mr. Wooster. I have never felt you faulted me for my pretensions regarding my general acumen. I firmly believe your generosity of spirit precludes that sort of pettiness."

Mr. Wooster hung his head. "Not so generous, Jeeves," he confessed with a shaky voice. "After Cannes… well, let's just say I gave you every reason for thinking you'd just been slipped the old dining implement in your dorsal side."

_Oh, my dear, dear, sir._

I turned and walked back towards the entrance to the flat. Leave eventually I might, but not like this. I could not go while he still carried so much unnecessary blame.

"Please, sir, let me fetch you some tea. I believe the two of us must talk."

_-x-_

In the end, after setting my possessions once more by the door, I fixed Mr. Wooster a second breakfast. I piled his plate high with eggs, bacon, sausages, kippers and a slice of tomato, along with a second plate of thickly buttered toast and marmalade and a pot of hot, sweet tea. To my immense surprise and gratification, he ate nearly all of it, despite watching me warily the whole time, still quite upset and confused.

"Jeeves," he asked softly, "What does all of this mean? Are you trying to tell me you're willing to give the young master a second chance?"

I halted abruptly on my way to the kitchen for more cream.

"I know I don't have much to offer, Jeeves," he went on. "An amusing tale at a dinner party here or there, a fruity bit of music in the evenings… not the sort of thing that would impress a man like you, who could run for Prime Minister as far as I'm concerned, but I could - "

"Stop!" I cried, stunning us both. "Please, sir. Please stop."

He drew himself up, doing his best to pull himself together. "Of course, Jeeves," he said hoarsely. "I won't make an ass out myself any longer. You should be serving someone far more capable - "

"_Sir, I beg you!__"_

He fell silent. A sudden helplessness seemed to afflict us both. I turned to him and gently took the fork from his hand, then proceeded to lead him to the settee, where I had him sit.

"May I, sir?" I asked, gesturing to the armchair across from him. He nodded and I sat.

"Sir," I began, "My resigning my position without proper explanation has been yet another foolish mistake on my part. I resigned not because I felt you unworthy of my services, but because," and here I took a deep breath, "Because I felt I was no longer worthy to serve _you_."

"Oh, Jeeves, please," he said, waving off my words and sounding bitterly heartbroken. "Can we not speak the truth even now?"

I shifted forwards and, in an action stunning in its impropriety, I took my master's face in my hands. "Sir, you are the best man I know! That I have _ever_ known!"

"Jeeves…"

"Sir," my voice cracked. "You must listen to me. Simply because I have shown the sheerest, uttermost galling stupidity in treating you so worthlessly, _does not mean that you deserve to be treated so. _Do you understand, sir? You are not worthless. You are more deserving than anyone I have ever known."

He shook his head. "No…"

"Yes, sir," I reiterated. "You cannot see it because you have let yourself become too impressed with me. But what you think of as my intelligence is nothing but a showy bit of cleverness and the ability to manipulate people. In many ways, you are far wiser than I."

"Why are you telling me such nonsense!" he shouted.

"It is not nonsense, sir. It is the wisest man who can discern the true things of value in this world. Justice, for a start, such as you displayed when you defended me to Mr. Seppings on the day you fell ill. Compassion, such as you showed when you defended me to your aunt and Miss Hayter-Fortescue. Loyalty, such as the way you refrained from telling the party at dinner who had truly caused the disaster, even when Mrs. Travers was chiding you.

"And forgiveness, which you have _always_ given me, even when I least deserved it. You do not possess these things simply because you have a good heart, Mr. Wooster - they are qualities which involve perception and strength as much as kindness."

"I couldn't have told without making myself look the chump," he protested in a whisper.

"I sincerely doubt that was the real reason, sir. I believe it is far more likely that, deep in your heart, you balked at shaming me even though I had given you every reason to do so, nor do I think you wished to make your friends and relations look foolish by telling them how they had been taken in by me."

In his weakened state, this much emotional turmoil was far too much for Mr. Wooster. While I felt what a terrible fool I had been for letting all of this go on for so very long, he, exhausted beyond measure, abruptly leaned forward to bury his head in the crook of my shoulder and began to weep.


End file.
